School buses vs public buses

[Martin2012]

One of the school bus routes in the South Gloucestershire area- Service 967 which served the secondary schools in the Yate and Chipping Sodbury area has recently been withdrawn and aparrently passengers are being directed to use local bus services instead.

I have been thinking for a while whether in some areas there is a case for school buses to be made public ie in areas where there is a lack of a suitable alternative service so that the same vehicle can be better utilised.

Other than health and safety/safeguarding are there any other factors which can dictate whether a dedicated school bus or an existing public bus is more suitable for transporting school passengers?

 

[Bletchleyite]

They very often are, in order that BSOG can be claimed. Though the timings, origin/destination pairs and it not being much fun to ride with a load of very loud kids tends to mean it appeals to very few.

 

[lukem]

One of the school bus routes in the South Gloucestershire area- Service 967 which served the secondary schools in the Yate and Chipping Sodbury area has recently been withdrawn

I thought that the 967 had been temporarily extended (although I couldn't find an end date)

Timetable on transpora website: http://www.transporabus.co.uk/967-westerleigh-to-yate

Tweet: https://twitter.com/TransporaBus/status/1695047003774833136

 

[markymark2000]

A good few areas already do this but nowhere near as many as could/should do it. Sadly these sorts of things are tried to be shot down by snobby parents who claim that this would be a huge safeguarding issue and how dare their little darling have to get onto a.... public bus...... What a disaster. Their child deserves to be chauffeur driver on a dedicated vehicle so that their darling doesn't have to walk far and they are basically protected from door to door.


Merseyside has a decent way of working but sadly it doesn't stack up in reality. All Merseytravel tendered buses are open to the public. Good luck getting one to stop for you though as drivers claim for safeguarding they can't let adults on. But it's tendered as open to the public and advertised as open to the public. Just... not open to the public haha. The same happens in other areas where operators claim the bus is open to the public as they want to claim grants off the government but in reality, if you were ever to try and use the service, the bus wouldn't stop or you would be kicked off.

Some of the other difficulties, beyond the bits that you say, are the fact that you have to consider the time penalty for serving the school. Some schools are on main roads, great, theres no issue there but some where you have to divert off route for safety or because the walk is prohibitive, you don't want to add too much delay to the bus service which would discourage normal passengers.
Sometimes school day only timetables can confuse passengers. Chalkwell do it and they have 'School Day' and then 'School Holiday & Saturday' timetables and they couldn't be much more different. It's very confusing and people have to learn term dates to know when they are able to catch the bus.



Something else that I would say is that it seems to be a common thing now for colleges to be getting worse. Colleges used to be putting everyone on the core bus network and now they can't do enough to get kids off it. Dedicated college buses are growing so much and it's really not good. Removing tens of thousands of people from the core bus network each day means viability of bus routes is lower than ever before as they are losing what was one of the core revenue streams for the routes. One of the worst colleges for this that I know of is Riverside/Cronton College in Widnes. Despite having 8 buses per hour over the Runcorn bridge with buses serving various areas all around Runcorn, the colleges still insist on having their own services which duplicate directly over the commercial bus network. Even if it means their students have to endure a longer journey, they prefer to do that than dare put their students on with the commoners.
One college in Wrexham demanded to an operator that a separate bus was provided just for their students despite the fact that the public bus ran at the same time as the normal service. Both ran by the same operator but the college demanded it was kept separate. We can't have anyone mixing with the undesirables who normally use buses.

Sadly, a lot of it is snobbery and control.

 

[73001]

A few of our Merseytravel dedicated school buses regularly carry members of the public. It's certainly not uncommon in the north of the area and drivers generally let them on. As a member of school staff I frequently travel on our buses and, other then checking on the passengers sanity, it doesn't cause us any issues. We occasionally get a call from a parent checking on the legality. A lot of journey apps just suggest the next registered service to wherever and lots of people use them these days.

 

[markymark2000]

A few of our Merseytravel dedicated school buses regularly carry members of the public. It's certainly not uncommon in the north of the area and drivers generally let them on. As a member of school staff I frequently travel on our buses and, other then checking on the passengers sanity, it doesn't cause us any issues. We occasionally get a call from a parent checking on the legality. A lot of journey apps just suggest the next registered service to wherever and lots of people use them these days.

I wonder if it depends on the operator or perhaps just the driver. I think that some drivers for certain Merseyside firms shall we say, would happily drive past or refuse access.

 

[73001]

I wonder if it depends on the operator or perhaps just the driver. I think that some drivers for certain Merseyside firms shall we say, would happily drive past or refuse access.

I certainly wouldn't want to rely on it as my only way to work! But probably you're right. I worked for Merseytravel some years ago and things like this become unwritten rules in certain garages unless someone bothers to ask.

 

[Martin2012]

Thanks to those who have responded.

Remember in the course of my job role having to liase with a now defunct operator who had a load of registered school bus services but subsequently deregistered the vast majority of them. They suggested to me that they deregistered them because they were being 'pressured to accept members of the public' on them.

Have also previously had experience of using a college day only service which was open to the public but on which the drivers regularly didn't bother to run the full return journey and instead fast tracked to where there were passengers to set down and sometimes also skipped part of the route where nobody had alighted that morning on the Inbound journey.

 

[markymark2000]

Remember in the course of my job role having to liase with a now defunct operator who had a load of registered school bus services but subsequently deregistered the vast majority of them. They suggested to me that they deregistered them because they were being 'pressured to accept members of the public' on them.

So they registered to claim funding then deregistered the route to avoid the public getting on. Amazing. The way I see it, as long as you have enough capacity for everyone, why does it matter whether your passenger is a 60 year old lady going to Waitrose, a 30 year old off to work at the housing development or a 16 year old going to school. The aim is to transport people and get bums on seats. An empty seat makes no money for anyone. Get people on, you make more money, people get where they are going.

Have also previously had experience of using a college day only service which was open to the public but on which the drivers regularly didn't bother to run the full return journey and instead fast tracked to where there were passengers to set down and sometimes also skipped part of the route where nobody had alighted that morning on the Inbound journey.

This is the bit that worries me and given the state of the traffic commissioner and councils, I have no hope that this sort of thing would be dealt with. Operators would just say they are looking into it and the same thing will happen for years and no one would care.

 

[richard13]

I think it is a lot more complex. For a start in many areas the school or college arranges its own transport and has nothing to do with the local transport authority. College transport usually does not accept day fares, but the college issues passes per month, term, academic year and thus the driver handles no fares or tickets. Public buses have to meet the disability rules, but educational transport is still exempt pending on going discussions - they use coaches and loading a wheel chair by lift takes far too long to be of practical use and is rarely necessary, hence the discussions. Dedicated buses often use the school / college grounds which are private property not open to the public; it cuts out having crowds of kids crossing and waiting on busy roads.

However in some rural areas, the school bus is the only bus and it may fill in a local journey or two during the day. This comes from the local transport authority, negotiating with the school(s) concerned. In these cases it has to be a regular bus with ticket machine etc. and thus run by a bus company and not a coach company. They may well be funded by both the education and public transport budgets. Similarly with universities, their dedicated routes are normally open to the public and run as regular buses.

In the major urban areas the situation is different with students having a choice of school / college, which is a luxury many rural areas don't have. The frequent public bus network is often the best solution for many, but dedicated, non public journeys, cuts out overcrowding for both students and the public and gets students to education in a timely, regular manner with school / college tracking the vehicle with known students aboard.

There must be other considerations and a mixture of them per situation. Exceptional weather and breakdowns / delays can be handled better on dedicated transport, particularly for the younger ages.

 

[Simon75]

In the 80s in Macclesfield Crosville had 2 buses going to Fallibroome High, on the Upton Priory estate.
E78 which duplicated most of the one of the Weston estate routes, with extention to Fallibroome.
The E18 Motram St Andrews - Prestbury to Fallibroome duplicated some of the E19 route , but with a double decker.
Both routes no longer exist, with current 19 timetable seving both the school and Motram St Andrew extention from Prestbury

In the 90s North Western routed a then K31 Northwich to Crewe via South Cheshire College in Crewe . No commercial service serves the College now

 

[markymark2000]

I think it is a lot more complex. For a start in many areas the school or college arranges its own transport and has nothing to do with the local transport authority. College transport usually does not accept day fares, but the college issues passes per month, term, academic year and thus the driver handles no fares or tickets. Public buses have to meet the disability rules, but educational transport is still exempt pending on going discussions - they use coaches and loading a wheel chair by lift takes far too long to be of practical use and is rarely necessary, hence the discussions. Dedicated buses often use the school / college grounds which are private property not open to the public; it cuts out having crowds of kids crossing and waiting on busy roads.

Where schools and colleges arrange their own transport though, they should understand that as public services, what effect their decisions have on the wider area. If you remove students from the core bus network, there likely becomes cuts to the core bus network, possibly just one trip so the bus can do the school run, other times possibly risk the whole rural service because the school/college journeys go a long way towards propping up the rest of the service off peak.

As for your point regarding bus/coach operators, a number of college buses are still being run by normal buses but still run as closed door services. I can sit here and list plenty of college buses run by normal service buses with working normal ticket machine so that barrier doesn't exist in a good number of cases. As for accessing school/college grounds, there is no issue with that as many schools/colleges have normal buses diverting in to serve.

I agree that where coaches are used though, it could add some complications to things but this could be overcome. Where there is a will, there is a way.

However in some rural areas, the school bus is the only bus and it may fill in a local journey or two during the day. This comes from the local transport authority, negotiating with the school(s) concerned. In these cases it has to be a regular bus with ticket machine etc. and thus run by a bus company and not a coach company. They may well be funded by both the education and public transport budgets.

Given the rules on PSVAR, I think a lot of routes are now covered by bus companies anyway. Operators that seem to focus on schools seem to be dwindling as it doesn't seem to be as good a revenue stream anymore.

Similarly with universities, their dedicated routes are normally open to the public and run as regular buses.

It's about a 50/50 mix I think. Some university buses are open to the public, some aren't. Plenty of examples where uni buses could be converted into normal public services and make a significant contribution towards the public transport network.

particularly for the younger ages.

I think on the basis of safeguarding much younger ages, primary school transport should definitely be kept closed door.

 

[Teapot42]

In the Peak District, many school services are run as variations of normal services. It messes with the timetable, but you can't blame the operator for wanting a full bus.

In these cases, while the service is still open to the public I've been advised that anyone specifically wanting to travel to the school is likely to be turned away by the driver. Other than that, the few times I've used these runs from intermediate stops there have been plenty of 'normal' passengers as well as the hordes of kids.

 

[JKP]

I think that the situation varies greatly between different areas. Locally, the number of school pupils in deep rural parts appears to be dwindling. As a result, the Education Department continually look to merge bus routes or downsize the vehicles used in order to reduce cost. The local High School has 650 pupils but is now served by one 49 seat coach together with 2 minibuses and 4/5 minibuses. One service bus still serves the school but this carries only a handful of pupils from outside the catchment area.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Where schools and colleges arrange their own transport though, they should understand that as public services, what effect their decisions have on the wider area. If you remove students from the core bus network, there likely becomes cuts to the core bus network, possibly just one trip so the bus can do the school run, other times possibly risk the whole rural service because the school/college journeys go a long way towards propping up the rest of the service off peak.

I'm not certain that schools and colleges have any reason to be concerned about public services that aren't their responsibility. It's important to you - it simply isn't important to them and certainly not against issues of OFSTED inspections and gradings, pupil safety and wellbeing, staff recruitment and retention.

 

[mb88]

London is a prime example of why having school pupils relying on regular service buses to get to and from school is a bad idea. Although there are a number of dedicated school routes, this is only where there is no duplicate regular service. The result is that in some areas other passengers have no chance of getting on a bus at school finishing time as they’re rammed full of kids. The 61 and 320 in the Bromley area are a couple of examples, although I’m talking 5 or so years back so not sure if things have improved. I think if you are to do this, you need to have extra journeys on the regular services at school times.

 

[markymark2000]

I think if you are to do this, you need to have extra journeys on the regular services at school times.

You definitely need to match capacity to the demand. It's no good providing one single bus for 200 kids plus normal passengers. If theres too many kids that 1 bus and and normal passengers can't travel, you do need to look at running a dupe or increasing the frequency so that everyone is accommodated for (whichever is more appropriate. Buses every 20 minutes or less should have a dupe. Every 15 minutes or more should have an increased frequency but the timetable should still be kept simple so that there isn't a huge variation between school day and school holidays.

 

[nw1]

At one stage, regular hourly routes used to take school traffic. Often they would run a little earlier or later to co-incide with the school opening and closing times, and would divert off the regular route to serve the schools.

On some routes a couple of regular hourly journeys would do this, to serve different schools with different going-home times.

So regular users on those journeys would have no choice but to share the bus with the school pupils. Generally however, double deckers would be used for such journeys when single deckers were the norm - which could lead to some interesting vehicle working patterns to accommodate this.

Does this practice still occur? Haven't seen it for a while.

 

[43055]

At one stage, regular hourly routes used to take school traffic. Often they would run a little earlier or later to co-incide with the school opening and closing times, and would divert off the regular route to serve the schools.

On some routes a couple of regular hourly journeys would do this, to serve different schools with different going-home times.

So regular users on those journeys would have no choice but to share the bus with the school pupils. Generally however, double deckers would be used for such journeys when single deckers were the norm - which could lead to some interesting vehicle working patterns to accommodate this.

Does this practice still occur? Haven't seen it for a while.

Not so much of a divert but my local route stops outside a school and the first journey after the end of the day use to have an extra 10 mins in the timetable to allow for the extra pupils travelling.

Diamond East Mids have some interesting diagramming to accommodate school services/busier trips with the decker's.

 

[Simon75]

I think on the basis of safeguarding much younger ages, primary school transport should definitely be kept closed door.

Why is that then ? Plenty of kids use open bus services?

 

[markymark2000]

Why is that then ? Plenty of kids use open bus services?

Primary school kids are under 10. Not many kids under 10 use normal public buses without an appropriate adult. Some will but most won't. With secondary school, colleges and universities, the safeguarding excuse goes out of the window as young people attending these establishments tend to be much more aware of the world around them and be able to do the right thing.

 

[nw1]

Primary school kids are under 10.

Pedantry point: was always under 11 in my day, and some counties it was under 12 (so much so that some people turned 12 shortly after beginning secondary school). This was some time ago though (firmly in the 20th century), so perhaps things have changed.

Not many kids under 10 use normal public buses without an appropriate adult. Some will but most won't. With secondary school, colleges and universities, the safeguarding excuse goes out of the window as young people attending these establishments tend to be much more aware of the world around them and be able to do the right thing.

That accords with my memories from the mid-to-late 80s when I most closely observed the practice (a time when I was school age myself incidentally, but my school didn't use buses). Most services were for secondary schools or colleges.

However I do seem to remember that the Alder Valley Bordon/Whitehill 227 school service of the immediate post-deregulation period (how's that for an obscure service?) did serve some primary schools.

 

[PeterC]

Pedantry point: was always under 11 in my day, and some counties it was under 12 (so much so that some people turned 12 shortly after beginning secondary school). This was some time ago though (firmly in the 20th century), so perhaps things have changed.

It's a bit variable when you have middle schools (do any areas still do that?) but the normal move to secondary school is in the academic year in which the 12th birthday falls. At the time of writing most year 7 students (1st formers in old money) will still be 11.

Outside if urban areas relying on commercial bus routes is a risk as they can be altered or withdrawn during the School year.

 

[richard13]

A couple of practical examples from a small town:

My local secondary (12-18) has 860 pupils and is normally served by a double decker every 30 mins, which has little involvement due to short distance and capacity. About half the pupils will live in town and walk. That leaves 400+ of whom at least 300 will be entitled to free travel over a wide rural area. One rural route is timed and diverted to serve the school. One interurban route has a special journey to/from school on a modified route avoiding both town centres and using a double decker on a single decked route. The rest is private hire using everything from taxis to double deckers, plus facilities for disabled and SEND kids with or without carers as required.

The nearest post-16 college is 16 miles away. It has 11,000 students but is mostly based in the city centre and so regular public transport including trains works. However, 66% of students are out of city and some are travelling over 50 miles each way (post 16 education is sparce). One regular hourly train service has the 08:00 journey amended to 07:30 to accommodate the demand including the connecting buses (they exist!) from out of county. Other provision is made at the out of county ends to make travel reasonable for students to attend compulsory education.

The former agricultural college is remote and provides its own transport as well as on-site boarding.

It is a big mixture of solutions. In some cases, running or diverting a public bus works. However, the economics of attributing costs to the public transport budget or the education budget is often political and costly and the benefit may well not be worth the hassle.

+++

Middle schools do still exist but are declining as rural primary school numbers fall and schools get amalgamated.

In rural areas, children do not have a choice of school. You go to the school the transport department is prepared to take you, unless parents are prepared to be taxi every day. Schools must take pupils coming in on their rural transport, regardless of school capacity. (That can cut both ways)

The safeguarding issue is primarily, I believe, one of not leaving teenagers stranded on the roadside or at school. There is also a need to get pupils to school on time reliably. Mobile phones help with this but not in school.

The big urban areas have different issues and pupils have much more flexibility.

 

[nw1]

It's a bit variable when you have middle schools (do any areas still do that?) but the normal move to secondary school is in the academic year in which the 12th birthday falls. At the time of writing most year 7 students (1st formers in old money) will still be 11.

Ah ok. Yes, I remember in my day that one county had middle schools which you started in the year you turned 11, while another didn't and you moved up in the year you turned 12. I changed county after primary school, which caused some difficulties and I ended up being unusually young for my year.

Outside if urban areas relying on commercial bus routes is a risk as they can be altered or withdrawn during the School year.

That's true, though it certainly was widespread in the 80s, under nationalisation and early deregulation. Wonder if schools could pay the bus company to keep the service going if a change occurred? I guess deregulation, occurring around 7 weeks into the school year (26 Oct 1986) immediately after half-term, must have posed a particular challenge.

Aside from deregulation, I do remember some changes like this. For instance part way through the 1984/85 school year (January 1985), I remember the afternoon double-decker on one Alder Valley route moved from around 1630 to around 1530. The upper school finished at 1530 and the middle school at 1630, so maybe there was some sort of contractual switch by which the upper school moved from a private operator to Alder Valley, and the middle school vice-versa? I do remember a private operator playing a role in transport to and from these schools, using an ancient double-decker which struggled to get up hills.

(As an aside, by 1986, two school years later, the afternoon double-decker on the post-deregulation equivalent route left as early as 1430, which sounds incredibly early for a school to finish; my school at the time didn't finish until 1600. Yet it definitely did finish then, I saw the bus and it was full of school kids).

 

[Martin2012]

Not too long ago I ended up on a bus service in the Cheshire East area which is seemingly heavily utilised by school kids. A journey on the 42 Congleton to Crewe route which departed Congleton around the 1500 mark.

The vehicle was a packed Enviro 200 from D&G and there were no spare seats once all the school passengers had boarded.

Not sure whether the answer would have been to make that journey for school passengers only, timetable it to start at the school or for D&G to run an appropriately sized vehicle?

 

[markymark2000]

Not too long ago I ended up on a bus service in the Cheshire East area which is seemingly heavily utilised by school kids. A journey on the 42 Congleton to Crewe route which departed Congleton around the 1500 mark.

The vehicle was a packed Enviro 200 from D&G and there were no spare seats once all the school passengers had boarded.

Not sure whether the answer would have been to make that journey for school passengers only, timetable it to start at the school or for D&G to run an appropriately sized vehicle?

Bigger bus would be the answer to that but sadly D&G aim to make the demand meet the size of the bus, plus the council may have not done the tender spec very well.

 

[Shotton]

I was on the 15:15 T2 from Bangor to Aberystwyth recently, which departs 10 minutes later than the standard service at XX:05. Allocating an appropriate bus to this whole journey would be incredibly challenging, given the bus was full and standing with mostly schoolkids all the way to Penygroes (arriving about 10 minutes late, at 16:15), and had almost all seats taken until Porthmadog where the bus departed also 10 minutes late at 16:45.

After that however, the bus almost completely emptied out to a handful of people for the journey onwards to Dolgellau, Machynlleth and Aberystwyth (I stayed on the whole way, and we made most of our 10 minutes back by just having no dwell in Dolgellau, pleasantly all connections waited for potential passengers even though we actually arrived just after everything was scheduled to depart.

It seems the solution here, if it could be funded, would be a duplicate bus for schoolkids to Porthmadog, but then I appreciate the fact that this journey probably significantly reduces the subsidy for the rest of the timetable.

An hour standing is not ideal, but then again, the bus would struggle to be all things for all people without extra money.

 

[markymark2000]

I was on the 15:15 T2 from Bangor to Aberystwyth recently, which departs 10 minutes later than the standard service at XX:05. Allocating an appropriate bus to this whole journey would be incredibly challenging, given the bus was full and standing with mostly schoolkids all the way to Penygroes (arriving about 10 minutes late, at 16:15), and had almost all seats taken until Porthmadog where the bus departed also 10 minutes late at 16:45

The wonderful council officers at Gwynedd Council decided to cancel the tender for the 5A which was, in a sense, the T2 dupe bus. It ran from Bangor to Criccieth via Caernarfon and Penygroes and via some villages. The council cancelled the tender, forgot to check the usage of it (the 5a was regularly full, sometimes standing. Plus the T2 was busy) and it has led to MAJOR overcrowding on the T2 and is now scrambling to find some way to get all of the kids home.

Lloyds on the T2 are providing a bus as per the tender spec. Not their fault that Gwynedd Council made a major mess up.

The 1N has just been enhanced to help the Penygroes to Caernarfon loads. Hopefully that helps.

 

[Shotton]

The wonderful council officers at Gwynedd Council decided to cancel the tender for the 5A which was, in a sense, the T2 dupe bus. It ran from Bangor to Criccieth via Caernarfon and Penygroes and via some villages. The council cancelled the tender, forgot to check the usage of it (the 5a was regularly full, sometimes standing. Plus the T2 was busy) and it has led to MAJOR overcrowding on the T2 and is now scrambling to find some way to get all of the kids home.

Lloyds on the T2 are providing a bus as per the tender spec. Not their fault that Gwynedd Council made a major mess up.

The 1N has just been enhanced to help the Penygroes to Caernarfon loads. Hopefully that helps.

That makes sense. I was actually slightly surprised (and relieved, given I needed to be in Aberystwyth before the next bus would have arrived) that I was allowed to board where I did due to the overcrowding.

Nobody was denied travel, but it certainly seems like strengthening is needed between Bangor and Caernarfon as well as beyond, so hopefully the 5A or some variant will be re-instated.

Incidentally, when we arrived at Penygroes, there was a minibus full of kids unloading infront (wonder if the 1N would be ran with something like that?), if this did come from the Caernarfon direction, it was definitely sorely required... There was no way we were fitting that many more people on the T2.

Thank you for shedding some light on the situation though