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£300 000 saved from school transport budget at just three schools

Local government: Transport

£300 000 saved from school transport budget at just three schools
 Sole provider contracts were at last a reality using notional routes created in PASS. The scheduling exercise would not have been possible without the tools in the system. Offers for variations to the contracts were acceptable but the core tender prices remain firmly associated with the new routes. The savings were significant with over £300 000 saved in the first year from the first three schools’
Chris Butler, Transportation Coordination Manager, Surrey County Council

At a glance

Surrey County CouncilSurrey County Council, using Ordnance Survey data and software from Trapeze®, made significant savings from rationalising special educational needs (SEN) transport routes and contract renegotiations.

Printable version: download PDFVisit the Surrey County Council website

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Surrey County Council’s Transport Coordination Centre (TCC) was required to bring costs under control and provide an improved service to its users, and needed to identify solutions that would contract a single operator, offer long-term contracts to allow transport companies to improve on financial stability and ensure best value. School transport services across Surrey are all contracted out and there is no council-operated fleet (with 1 000 contracted routes used daily).

Surrey County Council had a complex situation to resolve: 380 schools with varying transport needs, 1 500 pupils transported to 24 SEN schools (with a further 1 200 requiring transport to ‘out of area’ schools), 20% of contracts changing each month and 200 children transported in wheelchairs with 500 escorts (including 16 medically-trained paramedic nurses/escorts).

Surrey County Council used Trapeze-PASS routing software in conjunction with Ordnance Survey data to rationalise the routing to a number of SEN schools and then retender the contracts. It benchmarked 24 SEN schools for analysis and found that the total transport cost was £8 500 000 annually. It was decided to start with eight principal schools and issue tender documentation. All routes that were to be tendered were created in the Trapeze-PASS system and were focused on the need to embrace multi-occupancy journeys wherever possible. Many of the 300 or so bids that were returned were deemed unsuitable but two operators were identified as offering a cost-effective service for the eight schools.

Guildford High School: OS MasterMap Topography and Integrated Transport Network LayersGuildford High School: OS MasterMap Topography and Integrated Transport Network Layers – detail view

  • Initial £300 000 saved in the first nine months at three schools (equating to 9–16% cost savings).
  • Reduced number of vehicles required to meet statutory requirements.
  • Complaints from users reduced to almost nothing.
  • Reduced congestion and emissions.
  • Low number of service providers leading to increased efficiencies in their management.
  • Five-year contracts providing financial stability, allowing them to improve service quality and negotiate loans for better vehicles.
  • Platform in place to improve routing at as many of the remaining 350 mainstream and SEN schools as possible.

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