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Cardiff Council delivers more from enhanced SEN

Local government: Transport

Cardiff Council delivers more from enhanced SEN
 We get to know the children very well so we understand which combinations of pupils are suitable and which ones just won’t work. Using the system to work through the routes with the team from Cardiff Council was a great help. Using the system has really helped us to understand the other side of the job and just how complex it is.
Cozette Griffiths, Administrator, Ty Gwyn Special School

At a glance

Cardiff Council

Cardiff Council’s Schools’ Transport Team supports improved SEN school routing, optimisation and efficiency using geographic information from Ordnance Survey and the Capita® One Route Optimisation system, delivering huge saving from improved contract re-negotiations.

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Cardiff Council is responsible for an area of approximately 120 square miles with 140 schools. The Schools’ Transport Team manages the transportation of 3 500 mainstream pupils and 840 with a statement of special education needs or with special transport needs.

The Council needed a system to enable it to manage the complex home to school transport for pupils with a statement of special education needs more efficiently. Year on year costs were increasing and, as the Council has a duty to promote the use of sustainable travel and transport, a method to reduce carbon emissions, transport costs and management time was required.

Using Ordnance Survey’s OS MasterMap® Integrated Transport Network™ Layer data (supplied to all local authorities under the Mapping Services Agreement) and Capita’s One Route Optimisation application, Cardiff Council manages the transport of pupils with special educational needs as cost effectively and efficiently as possible. SEN Vehicle Management connects directly with the One database to obtain the relevant data on routes, vehicles, stops and pupils. Once the data is gathered it is displayed on two adjacent Ordnance Survey maps – one showing the needs and the other the existing routes allocated. Planners can then group the pupils together based on their needs and/or location. The system then adjusts the routes to determine the new journey time and cost. When a range of options have been considered, the preferred routes can then be saved on the One database along with the relevant pupil data.

Identifying pupils’ needs enables careful planning of school bus routes

    • £1 300 000 to £1 800 000 saved since September 2008 (the majority due to re-tendering on a route by route basis).
    • Significantly reduced carbon emissions – routes reduced by 1 200 miles a day.
    • Children spend less time in transit, with the average journey down from 14 to 12 miles.
    • Less congestion on school sites as 40 less vehicles are required.
    • Shorter contract planning time and more efficient tendering: it is estimated that time spent on this will be halved from four to two months.

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