The way of getting home after a drunken evening is changing and Operation Red Nose is aware of this. In order to reach more young people, the escort service is testing a new functionality this year which allows them to request transport directly on its mobile application.
For 40 years, to obtain support with Operation Red Nose, you have to make a telephone call to reach the center which assigns volunteers.
This is again the case this year, as the 2023 campaign began on Friday evening – with more than 500 transports – and will run until December 31.
But at a time when applications like Uber or Lyft allow you to “order” a driver directly from a mobile phone, the Quebec holiday service knew it had to follow suit.
“It is certain that at Operation Red Nose, we are always trying to renew ourselves, to remain at the forefront in terms of technology to be, precisely, present on the platforms which are used by clients and clients,” explained the director of communications and partnerships for Operation Red Nose, Marilyn Vigneault, in an interview.
“We are a non-profit organization, development is something very, very expensive, so until now it had not been possible to do it on our side. This is why this year, we are very proud and very happy to be able to launch this pilot project. »
Thus, in certain selected regions – Montreal, Laval, Basses-Laurentides, Rive-Sud, Saint-Jérôme and Saint-Hyacinthe – it is now possible to request a ride with Nez rouge directly from the mobile application, without having to wait for a ride. have the line at the telephone exchange.
This new feature will be rolled out gradually in the coming weeks in the affected regions, but already the goal is to make it available elsewhere in the coming years.
“Subsequently, our goal is to extend everything to all of Quebec,” confirmed M.me Vigneault.
The addition of this service is part of the launch of a new version of the Operation Red Nose mobile application, which has had a facelift this year.
“The application is much more user-friendly than it was, much more intuitive too, because the people who use the application, we will not hide it, are sometimes intoxicated, so it has to be simple and easy,” underlined Mme Vigneault.
Volunteers still needed
Friday evening, nearly 1,000 volunteers provided 532 rides on the first evening of the 40e Red Nose campaign.
Of the fifty regions that will take part in this year’s campaign, a little less than forty began their activities Friday evening, throughout Quebec and in a few places elsewhere in the country.
The kick-off was given a little earlier this year, with the first weekend taking place in November, but this early start to the season allows the various teams to properly hone their operations in preparation for the busy December evenings.
Mme Vigneault noted that everything went smoothly Friday evening, but that as is the case every year, the recruitment of volunteers remains “the crux of the matter.”
“The more people we have who get involved during the operation evenings, the more we are able to offer a service to more people, but also in a more efficient way,” she recalled.
Last year, 18,000 people donated their time at some point during the campaign to ensure party-goers could get home safely.
Difficult to say what the needs will be this year, but Mme Vigneault once again launched a call for people interested to volunteer.
“Nez rouge is well established in the customs of Quebecers, people are happy to see us come back, so we are hopeful that it will be a great campaign for our 40e edition,” she mentioned, recalling that it is possible to indicate your interest in becoming a volunteer on the site or the service application.