Night Owl trains drivers for a different type of ride

“When I say drink, you say beer!”  

“Drink!”

“Beer!”

“Drink!”

“Beer!”  

The chants of enthusiastic IU students were not sounding from within a fraternity house or next to the IU’s Memorial Stadium on a Saturday morning, but on the A route of the new Night Owl bus.  

The new route, which replaced the Midnight Special, runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The earliest route reaches its first stop at about 10 p.m. and its last at about 3:30 a.m.

Senior Justin Berkshire, is a public finance major, but on Friday nights, he drives the “drunk bus.”

Berkshire, who drives route A of the Night Owl, called his first night on the route “interesting.”

The Night Owl was as packed as any regular school day, but people were noticeably friendlier with each other Friday night.

Girls leaned on the boys sitting next to them to get a minute of shut-eye, and people swayed back and forth while holding on to the bars attached to the ceiling.

Intermittent random shouts, loud laughs and intense bouts of rapping clogged the air.
“I’ve had condoms thrown at me,” Berkshire said. “There have been mostly freshmen on here so far, and they never know where they’re going.”

Berkshire said the bus tended to be a little louder than a normal night and the atmosphere is slightly different.

“All I can smell is beer and perfume,” he said.

Ray Vanlanot, chair of the Student Transportation Board, said the Night Owl bus service is a culmination of different institutions and an expansion of past service.   

Campus Bus’ contract finished last year with the Bloomington Shuttle Service, provider for the Midnight Special, and the Board saw this as an opportunity to make a change within the transportation system.

“We wanted to address late-night issues,” Vanlanot said. “It was costing a lot of money to run the Midnight Special, and we found we could cut operating costs by about 50 percent.”

Campus Bus service now runs the Night Owl with their own buses, along with the Bloomington Shuttle Service.

Corey Inman, student supervisor for the Night Owl, said there was a lot of recruiting for new student drivers.

“They needed to be trained different procedures on how to deal with things such as cleaning up vomit,” Inman said. “Late at night some drivers might be tired and may not be used to driving at night. They have to deal with loud people, and they need to have patience.”

Inman said the Midnight Special functioned like a taxi service, while the Night Owl has a set schedule and includes stops in the Kirkwood Avenue area. He said the buses are larger in order to fit more people and the routes are overall more reliable.

Dan Leathers, fifth-year senior, is also a Night Owl driver and said the biggest difference the bus drivers were preparing for was the number of intoxicated students using the bus.

“The biggest selling point for the Night Owl is to make sure people don’t try to drive drunk home or find ways home just as unsafe,” Leathers said. “Walking is also somewhat of a concern and that can be helped by the bus. We want people to know that it’s OK to ride it if you’re drunk. It’s what it’s there for.”