I live in Philly. Anyone know how I rent a school bus? I looked on-line but didnt see anything. Thanks!
Call some of the Charter Bus companies and ask if they have schoolbuses to rent.
It would help if we knew what you would like to do with it.
Does it have to be a school bus? Try the yellow pages for bus services in general.
** SCHOOL BUS RENTAL PHILADELPHIA **
QED 
Do we want to know?
Yeah, if he wants to use it to collect random children, we probably don’t want to help him. Heh.
Not random. School-aged.
And I kinda doubt they’re going to toss you the keys like with a regular rental car. Wouldn’t a bus need to be driven with a special license? Me and my buffs knuckles Class C Illinois DL might do it for a price.
In California at least, you need a Class B licencse with a passenger endorsement. I’m not sure if airbrakes are a seperate endoresment on a Class B or not.
I think if you find someplace that will rent a school bus (or any kind of bus) it will come with a driver, whether you want one or not.
In Ohio you’ll need a class B and a schoolbus endorsement to drive a school bus. However, if it was a Greyhound-style coach bus, you’d need a “coach” endorsement.
If your payload doesn’t consist of a school-based trip, I am uncertain as to whether you would need one, the other, or both.
Thanks All. Its for New Years. Just looking for a bus to drive a bunch of drunk people around. Someone told me school buses were cheap to rent, but I am having a hard time finding one. Thank for the input though.
Depending on the number of people and the distance, it would likely be cheaper to put everyone in taxi cabs.
Probably not Gabe.
In my previous job, working for these guys, we did this sort of thing all the time. Bachelorette parties, busloads of people to the Buffett concert, baseball games, you name it, we did it.
Usually the charge is hourly, unless there’s a reasonably long distance involved, then it’s easier to charge by the mile. For example, I’d assume we’re paying an OT rate to the driver, so figure $22 an hour for wages, add 30% for overhead, round it and say ok, $100 for the first three hours, and $35/hour after that. So have a bus for four hours and pay $135. If you put 25 drunks on the bus, you just carted everyone around for a little over $5/drunk.
And, as noted before, when you rent the bus, you get the driver. Oh, and if you trash the bus, you’ll get charged to have it cleaned.
In Illinois, the only prohibition on this was with the license plates. “SB” plates cost $10 for two years, but if they’re on the bus, you can only carry school children. “PT” plates run around $300 IIRC, but you can then use the bus for charters for any group. Also, the bus needs to have a magnetic sign that says “Charter” to stick over the one in back that says “School Bus”.
That answer may have been helpful to the OP seven years ago.
This thread is 7 years old, the OP is probably an old man now.
In context of a seven-year-old thread, it’s kind of funny that their name is “Prompt Charters.”