Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 25 October 2023
87. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Education to provide an analysis to date of the number of school transport tickets allocated that are not being utilised and the consequent number of spare seats for the school year 2023-24, by county, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46798/23]
View answerThe School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the 2022/2023 school year, over 149,000 children, including over 18,000 children with special educational needs, were transported on a daily basis to primary and post-primary schools throughout the country.
In addition, school transport scheme services were provided for over 5,400 children who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine.
The total cost of the scheme in 2022 was €338.9m.
Already over 133,000 tickets have issued for the 2023/2024 school year which is an increase of 12% when compared with the start of the 2022/2023 school year. The number of tickets issued so far has already exceeded the total number of tickets issued in the 2022/23 school year.
At present, it is not possible for Bus Éireann to examine data on ticket usage as tickets are paper based. However, Bus Éireann recently undertook a pilot E-Ticketing project. Based on the information derived from this pilot project, it is intended to review the data and prioritise working towards E-Ticketing on all school transport scheme services . This will provide the Department and Bus Éireann with greater data on real time travel patterns.
Bus Éireann organises for vehicles to be full to capacity with tickets based on applications received and based on the seating capacity of the vehicle. For safety reasons, it is not possible to issue additional tickets over and above the seating capacity of the vehicle which could result in a potential overload situation arising and all pupils not being carried on the service.
It is recognised that all pupils issued with tickets will not travel every morning and every evening. In addition, certain after school activities may also result in pupils not travelling on certain days.
If a family decide that they no longer require their bus tickets for the current school year, they should return these tickets to their local Bus Éireann school transport office and their seats will be reallocated to other pupils wishing to avail of school transport.
