Pearson Airport to Ontario's Universities

One fare rule for every campus in Ontario

The fare from Pearson to a university is set by the residence's address and the vehicle class — never by the university, the college or the programme. York's Keele campus twenty-five minutes up the 407 is the lowest campus fare in the province; U of T Mississauga is next; the downtown campuses price as downtown; McMaster, Guelph, Waterloo and Brock price as their cities; and Western, Queen's, Trent, Ottawa and Windsor price as long-distance transfers with the stops included. The reservation engine shows the figure for the residence door before you enter a card, and it includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at Pearson's pre-arranged area and sixty minutes of waiting on international arrivals (thirty on domestic). Meet and greet inside the arrivals hall with a name board — the option most first-year international students' parents choose — is the one paid add-on.

Why the pages are by campus

A campus transfer is not a city transfer. It ends at a residence door on a marshalled ring road at move-in, it carries a term's luggage, it is booked by parents overseas for a student who has never seen the city, and it repeats on a calendar — move-in, reading week, the December and April departures, convocation — that the city routes do not have. Each page covers the drive from the Pearson curb, the residence doors the chauffeur uses, the move-in weekend, the international arrival, the parents' visit and the working visitor, and where the train or a connecting flight is honestly the better answer. The family and accessible page explains the luggage allowance; the pickup page explains the meeting points; the long-distance page explains how a two- to four-hour fare is set.

Groups and the cost per head

Four students with luggage fit the SUV and up to ten the Sprinter, on one booking met at the group meeting point inside the terminal and delivered to their residences in turn, with the fare split however the group likes. On the long routes — Western, Queen's, Ottawa, Windsor — the shared Sprinter is cheaper per head than the train or the connecting flight and is the way most international cohorts travel; the universities' international offices and the summer programmes book it on a corporate account with a manifest and monthly invoicing.