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Schools: Yellow Bus System

Volume 685: debated on Wednesday 11 October 2006

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they intend to continue with the pilot yellow bus school transport system. [HL7468]

We are providing £18.7 million over three years to purchase 150 dedicated buses for West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive’s Mybus school bus scheme. The evaluation of this scheme should be completed next year but the initial signs are that there has been some impact in reducing the number of children travelling to school by car and other non-transport benefits have also been reported.

Individual local authorities and passenger transport executives are encouraged to consider these and other dedicated school bus schemes as part of broader local transport planning and decide if they would be appropriate to their area.

The Education and Inspections Bill includes provisions to improve home-to-school transport, including enabling a small number of local authorities to propose pathfinder schemes to pilot innovative approaches to home-to-school transport which would focus on better school bus provision for more pupils and which could include trialling yellow bus schemes.

The Department for Education and Skills has policy responsibility for home-to-school transport and has published the School Travel Pathfinder Draft Prospectus and Guidance alongside the Education and Inspections Bill. This includes details of the criteria that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills will apply in deciding which schemes to approve (www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=9800).