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Guidelines on Hours of Travel

Hours of travel under School Student Transport Scheme (SSTS) for commercial bus and ferry services (regular passenger services).

Principles

• Students are entitled to access approved SSTS travel between home and school at the beginning and end of each school day. This means that each eligible student is permitted one forward and one return trip per school day.
• Transport operators are entitled to protect their fare box revenue and to collect fares to which they are legitimately entitled.
• Any local arrangements to accommodate student transport under the SSTS that may be negotiated between transport operators and schools must be cost neutral to NSW Transport and Infrastructure.

Practice

• All commercial transport operators must honour SSTS passes for approved travel commencing between the hours of 6.30 am and 7.00 pm, Monday to Friday, on school days.
• As a guide to the latest time for commencement of SSTS travel in the morning, 9.30 am can be used, and 2 pm as a guide to the earliest time for commencement of SSTS travel in the afternoon.
  
  However, these are guides only, as there may be legitimate reasons for students making their entitled home to school journey after 9.30 am or for undertaking the return journey before 2 pm. In these circumstances, operators need to ascertain if the trip is a legitimate SSTS entitlement or if a fare should be charged.
• Transport operators are entitled to request a fare when there is reasonable evidence that a student has already used his or her daily return trip entitlement or is seeking to use his or her pass for travel other than between home and school.
• While it is expected that students will generally travel to and from their usual transit stops under SSTS, in some circumstances it may be possible to negotiate a variation to this arrangement. For example, an operator may be willing to agree to collect a group of students from a nearby bus stop, rather than the one immediately outside the school, following sports practice.
• It is the school's responsibility to initiate any negotiations aimed at agreeing to a local arrangement with transport operators to accommodate students accessing their entitlements to transport under the SSTS.
  
  Any such local arrangements must be mutually agreed between transport operators and schools, fit within the existing policy framework of the scheme and be cost neutral to NSW Transport and Infrastructure.