The Yellow School Bus Commission, a cross-party investigatory group chaired by David Blunkett, has published its recommendations.
Read the full report (pdf, 1.6MB)
The Commission includes representatives of the main political parties and experts in education and transport. During its year-long review of school transport, it discovered that the number of children travelling to school by car has doubled in the last 20 years – 41% of primary and 21% of secondary school pupils are now being taken on the ‘school run’. This represents around one in five of car trips in the morning peak and on some roads journey times can double.
The Commission reports that a national roll out of yellow school buses (YSBs) would offer children and parents a safe and attractive option for commuting to and from school; reduce local traffic congestion; benefit the environment; improve safety and wellbeing; and improve attendance and timeliness.
The Commission recommends that:
- all schools should continue to promote walking and cycling for pupils living within one mile from primary school and two miles from secondary school;
- dedicated school buses should be provided for primary school children living over one mile from school;
- secondary school pupils should be encouraged to use scheduled bus services but dedicated school buses should be provided for distances greater than two miles to secondary schools where there is limited provision of scheduled bus services, or serious behaviour problems with pupils on the public bus network, or the potential to link with primary school YSBs.
As well as providing safe and secure transport for children these new buses would remove up to 180 million unnecessary car journeys per year.
The report estimates that providing school buses to primary schools would lead to financial benefits of £460m a year to parents and road users, with parents alone saving £92 million a year on fuel and other vehicle costs. There would also be a net reduction of over 55,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per annum.
David Blunkett called on government, locally and nationally, to take forward the recommendations, saying: “This is a forward-looking, realistic and highly relevant contribution to the debate not simply about transport, but about energy use, climate change and the sensible use and conservation of resources. This is about broad and highly relevant political issues as well as, crucially, the education, safety and security of our children.
“We are proposing a long-term programme which could revolutionise the way we do the ‘school run’. But this is not just about the length of time parents spend getting their children to school; it is also about the impact this has on both society and business and enterprise, as well as key issues of energy conservation and climate change.”
