Proposal Two: To increase flexibility to meet short-term variations in demand by using the full licensed capacity of buses
What is the current situation?
On public transport, the licensed vehicle capacity (the maximum number of passengers it is allowed to carry) usually includes standing room. When buses are contracted by Hampshire County Council for School Transport, standing room is not currently included in the calculation of how many passengers the vehicle can carry.
However, the County Council asks operators of larger contracted vehicles to confirm both seated and standing capacities to understand the vehicle’s size and seating arrangement.
When an additional student becomes eligible, and the route serving their locality is at maximum seating capacity, the County Council currently commissions an additional vehicle to accommodate the additional student.
What is being proposed?
We are proposing to increase flexibility to meet short-term variations in demand by using the full licensed capacity of buses.
Reason for this proposal
Until a sustainable long-term national funding solution can be found to address the intense financial pressures facing not only Hampshire County Council, but also wider local government, the County Council has no choice but to consider changing or reducing services in some areas and propose options for savings.
It is anticipated that this change, combined with Proposal One (bus pass usage data) would eventually contribute around £770,000 per year towards addressing the County Council’s overall anticipated remaining £97.6 million budget deficit from April 2025.
Hampshire County Council also has a duty to promote the use of sustainable travel. For bus journeys, this could include using seats more efficiently leading to fewer journeys, or smaller vehicles, being needed.
The use of standing capacity would be a more cost-effective and environmentally responsible approach to providing additional temporary capacity on routes in exceptional circumstances, rather than commissioning additional vehicles.
The practice of using standing capacity is already in place within other local authorities, including Lincolnshire County Council and also Lancashire County Council, whose policy is similar to this proposal.
How would the proposal be implemented?
If this proposal is agreed, the County Council would update practices to allow licensed standing capacity to be used in exceptional circumstances from September 2025.
The use of data from digital bus passes (as set out in Proposal One) would enable the County Council to commission routes and vehicles based on the actual number of students who travel on them.
Where this data indicates that significantly fewer children than are eligible are actually travelling, the service could allocate more children to a vehicle with the expectation that there will be seats available because other eligible children are not using them.
We would only allocate places up to the limit of the licensed standing capacity, and this would serve as an ‘overflow’ in the exceptional circumstances where children who do not normally use their allocated transport require it on a particular day.
The School Transport team could take into account licensed standing capacity when the size requirement (number of children who need to travel) for each large bus is next reviewed.
Illustrative Example
A County Council contracted bus has 72 seats, with standing capacity of eight. 72 eligible students are allocated to the route, however the digital bus pass data shows that no more than 59 students have ever travelled on that route at one time.
A new student from the same area then becomes eligible for transport. Should this change be approved, the student could be allocated to the bus route because there would be seats available.
Without this change, an additional taxi would need to be commissioned by the County Council which would travel along the same route, despite there being capacity on the 72-seater bus.
Potential impacts
This proposal would apply to both School Transport and Post-16 Transport users.
The accuracy of the data the County Council expects to collect from digital bus pass usage would mean that standing capacity would rarely need to be used. In almost all cases there will be more than sufficient seats for the students who are travelling.
The following impacts have been considered, should standing capacity be used on a vehicle:
- if a student was temporarily unable to stand (e.g. due to injury), parents or schools could inform the County Council who would alert the relevant route operators
- routes transporting students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) would not be impacted, as it is understood that some students and young people with SEND would be unable to stand for some or all of their journey to school and could be anxious that they would not get a seat
- students in rural areas may be more likely to travel for longer distances and therefore could be standing for longer in a scenario where standing capacity is used; however, students travelling longer distances/for longer periods would enter the vehicle first and therefore would be most likely to use seating capacity
Exceptional cases and the right to appeal
There is an existing mechanism in place for the School Transport service to consider whether in exceptional cases transport can be granted as an exception to policy.
There is also a statutory right to appeal for any family who wishes to challenge a transport entitlement decision. This right of appeal covers decisions on whether a child is entitled to transport, and on the form of assistance offered.