Colgate University’s Transportation Department has collaborated with developer Bishop Peak Technology to create a new app, Colgate Shuttle, which provides route schedules and real-time shuttle locations for the University’s free transportation service.
Director of Transportation Colin Idzi spoke about changes being made to the system — including the development of the app, which can be downloaded from the app store.
“We wanted to have it up and running, but not advertise it yet, just to kind of work the kinks out,” Idzi said, “We’ve been working with the company for quite a while.”
Since moving its transportation services in-house after ending its contract with First Transit in August 2024, the University had operated the shuttle fleet without the First Transit app that previously provided updated schedules. Instead, students relied on the Colgate website, which many noted was hard to navigate, confusing to read and, at times, inaccurate.
First-year Olivia Michael spoke about her troubles previously navigating the shuttle service from Frank Dining Hall.
“[One] weekend, my friends and I walked to Frank to wait for the 4:18 p.m. shuttle. We made sure to get there a few minutes early to be safe, but the shuttle never ended up coming, and we have no idea what happened,” Michael said.
After dealing with the same issues for years, even before the University took control of the fleet, senior and computer science major Kevin Han decided to simplify the process of finding the next available shuttle and created his own solution: an easy-to-use website called cShuttles. The program allows students to select a route and location before displaying the arrival time of the next available shuttle compared to the current time.
“Basically, what I do from my end is look through all the shuttle time tables. I extract them and put them in a format that’s easy to read,” Han said.
Han was inspired to develop cShuttles before the University publicized its own app.
“I was going to class, and I literally missed the cruiser by a minute,” Han said. “I had to look through the time table, and it was so hard to pick out the exact time. Also, since the [new app] still wasn’t out that week, I was like, ‘I’m just going to make it easier to read.’ That was my biggest point in making the new site.”
In addition to the Colgate Shuttle app, Idzi told the Maroon-News that the University plans to improve transportation for the community by adding cameras to the existing shuttles.
“We just signed a contract with a camera company, so each one of our shuttles will have six cameras on it,” Idzi said.
As early as next year, Idzi spoke about updating routes with the help of what he calls a “people counter” — a device inside the shuttles that will allow staff to know where the busiest shuttle stops are and when more drivers may be needed.
“Instead of having two different routes, like a townhouse and a bookstore route, I want to develop one route where no matter what bus shows up, you can get on it,” Idzi said.
Idzi also shared that students can look forward to future changes to the nighttime shuttle route. Instead of waiting for a shuttle to reach the scheduled stop on a route, students would have the option to request rides on-demand.
“The students would have to download an app, but after 6 p.m., they could go on the app and [it would work] almost like Uber,” Idzi said.
While still being updated, the Colgate Shuttle app is now available to download on the App Store. Han’s website, which simplifies the schedule available on the University’s website, can be found online at cshuttles.vercel.app.
