Due to the overwhelming amount of calls that Campus Safety received last semester by students for rides to different locations on and off campus, President Mauri Ditzler decided to brainstorm a way to easily transport groups of students to and from places. The BritBus was born this fall semester and was handed to the Assistant Director of Campus Safety, Ryan Woods, to manage.
The route service is intended to help students without a car on campus get to hotspots around campus and in town. It’s meant to be especially useful when colder weather blows in.
The 15-passenger BritBus vans also allow students to go off campus later at night. Before, students could not get rides to off-campus locations from Campus Safety after 6:30 p.m.
The bus route starts at Burns Apartments, then heads to the Kellogg Center, Wesley Hall and Munger Apartments. Then the van goes off campus to the Ludington Center, and then to Family Fare and Family Dollar.
The van spends about 10-15 minutes at each stop and then travels to the next stop. The next van comes to pick up students at each campus location every 30-45 minutes. The BritBus schedule also works around classes that are held at the Ludington Center to make it easier for students to be transported to and from class.
For off-campus stops, like Family Fare and Family Dollar, BritBus gives students about an hour to peruse the area and the stores before heading back to campus. At the end of the route, the van drops off students where they need to go, whether it be a dormitory, academic building or campus hotspot.
“I think it’s more efficient than calling Campus Safety individually for a ride,” said BritBus driver Ryan Underwood, a junior from Hamilton, Michigan. “It doesn’t make sense to keep going back and forth between spots. Every spot that we have on the route are the main spots that people called to go to last year, so it just made more sense to make a bus route.”
All Albion students were sent an email at the beginning of the semester with the service schedule and pick-up and drop-off times. Students can also access this information on the MyAlbion app, online or on the fliers posted around campus.
Feature photo by Gabby Henriksen.
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