Over 1400 commercially run school bus places to be created for students

Over 1400 commercially run school bus places are being created for students across the county as part of the County Council’s work to boost the number of school bus services provided by external operators.

The County Council has worked with a number of local commercial bus operators to provide the bus spaces across 31 routes, which will go live from 4 November 2019. Some extra bus place capacity has also been created, meaning some students on waiting lists have been able to secure transport.

The new services mean parents and carers can buy tickets for students directly from the bus operators. Ticket prices on these routes will be similar or even less than those on previous Council commissioned routes and most operators will offer the same range of payment options as before.

Anita Cranmer, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills and Mark Shaw, Cabinet Member for Transportation, say: “It’s fantastic to see these new commercial school routes coming into operation. We have been running similar commercial services across 21 routes since September with good success.

“Safe travel is a key priority for us as we know it is for parents, and to achieve that we have ensured that operators must provide services in a way that complies with the very stringent national legislation that is in place for transport operators. We will be regularly monitoring to make sure this happens.

“Working with commercial bus operators to provide school bus services means better services for parents both now and in the future, including the ability to extend the range of bus routes with more places and the potential for lower costs on ticket prices. This is a great example of how we are achieving that.”

You can find more information about the new commercial school routes on our website.

Parents and carers can contact us about school transport using our contact form.