School Bus Services
The PTA sets the policy and entitlement framework, provides system support and manages the contract arrangements of more than 800 orange school bus services around the State.
These buses provide access to school for students in rural areas, picking them up from the farm gate (where appropriate) as well as providing access to schools in the metropolitan area for students attending special education facilities. Responsibility for the management of these services rests with the School Bus Services (SBS) branch.
At balance date, the school bus network was made up of 707 school bus contracts servicing mainstream schools and 118 servicing special education facilities. Around the State, these services were accessed each school day by 28,800 students.
Where eligible students could not be accommodated on a school bus, their parents/carers were paid a conveyance allowance to offset the cost of getting their children to the nearest appropriate school.
Cost of the service
The cost of the school bus program, including payment of conveyance allowance, was $103.1 million in 2011-12. Administration and corporate on-costs took the total to $109.6 million.
All orange school buses are operated by private contractors. There are three contract types.
- Composite Rate Model (CRM) contracts (20-30 years in duration) - 688 contracts (688 services).
- Fixed-term contracts (1-15 year tendered terms since 1995) - 128 contracts (128 services).
- Regional School Bus cluster contracts - nine contracts (107 services).
The CRM is an average-cost model which was implemented in January 2004. The cost elements of the payment model are reviewed over a three-year cycle by an independent review panel.
Description of services
The average cost per contract kilometre rose seven per cent this year, reflecting increases in the fixed and variable cost components of contract school bus operations. This includes the associated costs with the phased introduction of air conditioning and automatic transmission on contract school buses and the expansion of the cluster contract arrangements.
The service reliability measure covers rural mainstream services and Education Support services in the metropolitan area, and is based on an arrival time of less than 10 minutes before school starts and a departure time of less than 10 minutes after school finishes. In 2011-12, service reliability was 99 per cent (97 per cent previously). SBS also processed 4735 conveyance allowance claims for eligible recipients; and 9.822m conveyance kilometres were travelled, costing $1.93m.
Objectives and outcomes
| OBJECTIVE | OUTCOME |
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Provide transport assistance for eligible students to attend their nearest government or non-government school offering the appropriate year of study |
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Ensure the transport assistance provided to students is appropriate, cost-effective, safe and fair in its application |
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Ensure all service contracts are managed effectively and efficiently in accordance with agreements made between the Minister, the PTA and individual contractors and/or their representatives |
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The year’s developments
Due to the impending release of the Independent Review Panel (IRP) report on the School Bus Services Composite Rate Model Contract, all fixed-term contract tendering was suspended by Government, and only 12-month contract rollovers for existing contracts and new services were authorised.
While a number of new services were deferred to 2012-13, the following interim services were implemented to ensure that the needs of eligible students were met:
- A new Education Support service for College Row in Bunbury
- New services to Wyndham, Ngalapita Bidijul, Bindoon Northam, Geraldton Park Falls and Merredin Town Service.
The report of the IRP, chaired by Mr Haydn Lowe, was released in November 2011.
In April 2012 the Government said it would deliver on its long-term commitment of maintaining the traditional orange school bus industry by introducing an evergreen contract. The evergreen contract will allow operators to continue their contract indefinitely, subject to an ongoing need for service and the contractor meeting a number of key performance indicators (KPIs).
At year-end, 716 school buses (77.4 per cent of the contracted fleet) were fitted with seat belts and 815 (88.1 per cent of the contracted fleet) were air conditioned.
Major initiatives for 2012-13
Negotiations with industry over the specific content of the new evergreen contracts will start. Mr Laurie Shervington has been appointed to chair the group, with representation from the Minister’s Office, the PTA and the school bus industry. Phased implementation of the new arrangement is expected to start with the 2013-14 financial year.
To maximise efficiency, SBS will continue to review its operations, including:
- Services operating in the Perth metropolitan fringe (EG Armadale, Two Rocks, Gidgegannup, Ellenbrook, Brigadoon and Toodyay)
- Rural services in Wyndham, Warmun, Balgo Hills, Ngalapita, Ngalangangpum Bow River, Kondinin, Narembeen and Moorine Rock
- Southwest Coachlines services from Collie, Manjimup, Augusta, Busselton, Bunbury, Margaret River and Nannup feeding into Bunbury and Busselton
- New cluster contract in Broome for rural students include a wheelchair access bus for students attending Education Support services in the town.
New services will be tendered for Austin Cove (Mandurah), Bindoon Catholic Agricultural School, Balgo Hills, Ngalapita, Ngalangangpum Bow River, Luurnpa, and Billiluna.
SBS will continue to liaise with the Department of Education to review the student transport assistance policy with regard to reviewing transport provision when school facilities are opened or closed.
Safety
All school bus accidents are notified to the PTA. The measure for the notifiable occurrences is expressed as the number of accidents (major and minor) reported during the year. The number of occurrences indicates the effectiveness of the safety management procedures and controls the extent to which they are being adhered to by school bus contractors and drivers.
This year the indicator reached 22, compared with the target of 13, and the 2010-11 result of 19. There were 22 on-road school bus accidents (all classed as minor) in 2011-12. Of these, 59 per cent occurred through no fault of the school bus driver, and 12 occurred in the country. No fatalities or serious injuries were recorded.
SBS has started a trial of safety devices in response to a series of incidents where young children were left on school buses at the end of a service. The trial is considering devices that require the driver to walk through the bus to activate a switch located at the rear of the bus.