Off Campus College Transport (OCCT) reinstated its guest rider policy in late October, after the company suspended guest access to buses in January when it installed electronic scanners on blue buses to check students’ Binghamton University IDs.
The new policy requires students to register their guest at the OCCT office in the New University Union. Once registered, guests receive a one-week pass to ride the OCCT blue buses.
Even before it installed the scanners, OCCT required passengers to present student IDs to ride the bus.
The former guest policy allowed students to bring one guest per ID. OCCT initially suspended its guest policy “due to liability and safety concerns,” according to its website.
Philip McPherson, a senior majoring in cinema and a former bus driver, said he rarely checked IDs under the old policy.
“I only checked people that were obviously older or didn’t look like students,” McPherson said.
The ID scanners and removal of guests were implemented as a joint effort between OCCT and BU to increase rider “accountability,” according to Jonathan Yousefzadeh, public relations coordinator for OCCT.
Brittany Andersen, a junior majoring in biology, said it makes her feel “safer” that students now have to swipe their cards in order to board the bus. She also lauded the guest policy for the same reason.
“Having students sign [a guest] in makes the bus a lot safer, so now somebody won’t swipe some random stranger in,” Andersen said.
But Andersen said she felt frustrated with the “no exceptions” policy regarding possession of a student ID.
“My friend forgot her card once, so we couldn’t ride the bus and were forced to take a cab home,” she said.
She suggested that OCCT could rectify this problem by allowing students who forget their IDs to provide their B-Number instead.
McPherson said he did not like non-students riding his bus, but that he hopes in the future there will be “an easier way” to register guests that does not require students to go to the OCCT office.
“It would be easier if we just checked the license of a guest and took down their name,” McPherson said.
McPherson said he hopes the scanners force students to behave better when riding the bus.
“Drunk and rowdy Binghamton students caused most of the problems when I was driving,” McPherson said. “Even if you go here, that doesn’t make you any safer to ride with than somebody off the street.”