Free public transport but scant school bus links still drive congestion in the west

The school run is heaping pressure on roads in Melbourne’s west as many families drive their children instead of putting them on public transport, and teachers say students are arriving late to school due to infrequent public transport.

Passenger trips including the school run make up nearly four in 10 car trips in the municipalities of Brimbank, Melton, and Wyndham, well above the city average of 2.5 in every 10 private car trips, state government transport data shows.

Werribee resident Tania Yousuf has two children at the Islamic College of Melbourne in Tarneit and another at Suzanne Cory High School in Werribee. She drops them off every morning, taking about 20 minutes to get to each school.

The public transport route involves several buses and would take more than an hour. Yousuf supports students having free public transport this year, but says her family would gain more benefit from the policy if buses were more frequent, saving on petrol – including $800 a month for a driver to pick the children up after school.

“We have less bus services,” she said. “Most of the time we have to use our car.”

Wyndham has the second-highest number of independent trips for education in the city – 99,914 trips per weekday – following the City of Casey, which has 156,276 daily education trips. The journeys include school and tertiary travel.

Last year, the state government added nearly 2000 weekly services across Wyndham Vale and Werribee, including services for Bemin Secondary College and Laverton P-12 College.

One additional service has been a third service between the Riverwalk Estate and Werribee Secondary College, although parents say children often still miss the bus because it’s too crowded.

“The population of Riverwalk has exploded. It’s in a good school zone, which is Werribee Secondary,” says Lahiri Bellarykar, whose son Anagh tries to take the bus each day.

“That one additional bus, even that is not enough. Every day is a struggle. Sometimes laptops get damaged because someone accidentally steps on them.” He believes the bus route needs at least two additional services.

Iqbal Hossain, a teacher in the western suburbs, says school buses need to be more frequent to ensure that if one is missed it doesn’t then make the student more than half an hour late.

“The next bus they catch, we’ve already finished period one,” he said. “They potentially miss a whole lesson in the morning.”

Consolidating bus routes and operating more services more frequently is an option that Dr John Stone, a transport researcher at the University of Melbourne, has examined and supports.

There are plenty of buses operating in the west, Stone says, but too many routes require people to change buses several times. “It’s spread very thinly,” he said.

Stone said the current bus network could be restructured to give a 10-minute service using main arterials, acknowledging this could mean fewer localised routes.

Stone said public transport formed part of students’ developing independence. “That time between finishing school and getting home is a time when we grow; we learn to interact with people,” he said. “Without that, it’s a real loss.”

A Department of Transport and Planning spokesperson said the government was investing in school buses to make sure every student could access education in their local area.

“We undertake regular reviews of school bus services to make improvements, and we will continue to work with schools to identify the best transport options for students.”

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