Conveyance Allowance Program

Public transport accessibility measures

Public transport accessibility measures

The department acknowledges that public transport options to travel to and from school may be limited for some postcode areas within the metropolitan conveyance allowance boundary.

A school transport Accessibility Index identifies postcode areas within the boundary where there might be limited public transport options for travel to and from school.

Postcodes areas are given a score. The lower the score the more limited the access.

The standardised accessibility factors are:

• school catchment — public transport and government funded school buses within a 400m catchment of a school
• network coverage — the proportion of the population (by postcode) residing within a 400m catchment of transport routes
• quality of service — if transport services are supplied during periods of peak student demand and the frequency on these routes during that time

The Accessibility Index takes into account school start and finish times and its alignment with a postcode area’s public transport services.

By combining all these factors, the department is able to determine the accessibility of public transport to schools in a postcode area. Students attending schools or campuses located in postcode areas ranked as having limited public transport options may be able to continue to claim the conveyance allowance until such time as public transport improvements are identified in the department’s next metropolitan boundary review.

Changed Accessibility Index score

The department reviews the accessibility of public transport to schools in postcode areas bordering the metropolitan conveyance allowance boundary every four years and will provide schools participating in the Conveyance Allowance Program with at least 6 months’ notice of any change to their students’ eligibility for a conveyance allowance. The next review will be conducted in 2020 for introduction in 2021.

Once a postcode area within the metropolitan boundary is deemed to have an Accessibility Index which indicates an appropriate level of public transport exists for travel to and from school, schools within the postcode area will no longer be eligible to claim the allowance.