Hiring a shuttle or bus for your event or trip

Throughout the year, individuals and departments may need to hire a bus for a field trip or special event. The organization of the bus is done by the individual organizing the trip, not the Transportation Office. This page provides all the information needed to order a bus; plan for pickup, drop off and staging; or to block parking spaces on the street for a temporary bus stop. 

Mountain Transit

We have a contract with Mountain Transit to provide our Lakeside/194 Shuttles. For around Vermont, they are one of the only operators. We contract with them for $60.50 per hour and they are available to do as little as 1 hour to a full day. They do charge for the transit time of 1.5 hours (45 mins each way) to get from their depot in Milton to Champlain so plan on the base price starting at around $90 and going up depending on how many hours you need. They are more than happy to provide multiple buses, such as we have at Orientation etc. To book a bus, email MTCharters@ridesta.com with a detailed description of the number of buses desired, pickup and drop off times and locations and any more event details that will help them. They can also be called on (802) 893-1334 for more information.

College Vans

Keep in mind, that we have three college vans available for use by students and employees. These are 8 seat passenger vans (driver and 7 passengers) so may meet your needs if you have a field trip or event with not too many people. Anyone driving a college van needs to be certified and the vans need to be booked in advance. Visit the College Vans webpage for all information.

Pickup and Drop Off Location at Champlain.

If you only hire one or two buses and the bus you intend to use will only stop at the main campus for 5 minutes to pick up and drop off, please use the bus stop on Maple Street beside the bus shelter in front of CCM (where the Spinner Bus used to stop). Another location where a single bus can pull in to pick up and drop off is the Aiken Driveway between Aiken and MIC (they dont fit in the turnaround so the bus would normally just park and then back out).

If there is to be multiple buses contact the Transportation Office to make a plan to block off a number of spaces on Maple St or South Willard Street. This is what happens for Admissions events. The best location for this is the six parking spaces in front of Hill and Lyman Halls on South Willard Street as this allows the bus to head straight down South Willard St to Lakeside, instead of having to take left hand turns onto Summit and Main Streets (which can be difficult at certain times of day). See a typical route map to Lakeside and back including the S. Willard Street Bus Pickup Location here. Please ensure that your event bus has a defined route that does NOT include Summit Street or South Prospect Street south of Maple Street so that our buses arent driving through those residential neighborhoods.

Staging Location at 115 Lakeside Ave

If the bus needs to stage while it is waiting for the event to finish etc, the only available location is at our 115 Lakeside Lot (formerly Gilbane). Please do not ask them to park on any neighboring streets. They can park at the very end of the Gilbane lot, near the railway track where there is plenty of space for multiple buses to stage. Please do not have them stage in the Zone 1 - Miller Center @ Lakeside lot. See a detailed map for Bus Staging Locations here.