Page 5386 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 16 November 2010
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• Marist College provided a letter to ACTION on 15 September 2010 requesting the above dedicated school bus service. Unfortunately this document was received once all the changes for Network 10 were finalised, meaning all available resources had already been utilised.
• ACTION advises that this request will be considered once resources become available.
• Over 50% of students catch regular route bus services.
• For efficiency purposes ACTION also conducts regular reviews of all its school services. Noting that students can travel to and from school by:
o Normal route services;
o Dedicated school services;
o Via interchanges (transferring); or
o A combination of the above.
• Due to fleet requirements arising from Network 10 ACTION resource allocation is currently at capacity. As such, any new dedicated school service will result in an existing service being removed by necessity.
• As part of the Network 10 changes, route 2 will arrive in Woden Interchange at 8:10am. Students will then need to connect with route 319 at 8:15am, which will ensure they reach the school by approximately 8:25am. Furthermore, routes 21/22 can also take passengers from Woden Interchange to Marist College.
• ACTION previously met with parents from Marist College, to discuss the provision of a dedicated school bus service to Deakin/Yarralumla, who were offered alternative travel options. This included using normal route services with a transfer at the Woden Interchange necessary.
• Criteria considered includes the age of the students, children with special needs, the level of demand for the service, location of demand for a service, availability of an convenience of, access for students using regular route services, availability and carrying capacity of existing dedicated school bus services, available funds for dedicated school bus services and the impact on scheduling of regular route services.
• Typically, non-government schools draw students from a broad geographical area and school bus services will reflect this spread.
• As a general principle the decision of a parent to send children to a school further from their home is a personal choice and parents and schools cannot assume that such decisions can be accommodated through the provision of dedicated school bus services funded by the community at large.
• Based on the factors considered above ACTION believes that its provision of bus services between Deakin/Yarralumla to MCC is at an adequate level.
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