Would a school-run minibus service be useful for primary families?

[MaryBell78]

Hi everyone. I'm researching a local school-run minibus service for families. If there was a safe, DBS-checked, reliable service that picked up and dropped off primary school children, would this be useful for your family? What would be your biggest concerns and what would you expect to pay? Thank You!

Our primary has minibuses a few routes. However the school does take children over long distances so would depend on the area of the country. Some mainstream primaries the distance to get in is 100 metres so wouldn't be useful in that instance.
Only downside for us is we aren't that near the stop but door to door would add too much to everyone's travel time.

My children did use a school bus service from 4yo (State, rural area).

Its usefulness with differ across the country... so the wuestion is why you want to set one up.

Also, just to add this would be North West (UK) based

A great many private schools have this sort of service (certainly where I live in Bath). The schools tend to own a lot of the buses themselves, but also contract with local coach companies. I seem to remember some families did informal arrangements with a local firm themselves when there were suddenly lots of children on an outlying village. It all gets a bit messy if the school does lots of extra-curricular before or after school (and you’ve suddenly lost half your passengers)!

Thank you very much for your response!

Some after school services have these already. I’m not sure who would pay someone to bring their children home but not need childcare, once they are old enough to be home alone/ with wfh parents, they can walk

Our school had a school run one as pupils were within catchment but beyond a safe walking distance. It was therefore funded by the LA. Longer school day but they loved it and got to make a small group of (older too) friends really quickly which helped them settle.

My husband is in this role for coaches/school buses and minibuses and honestly it’s a nightmare. Very little work in holidays as schools are their bread and butter. Between the morning run and afternoon run they fill their time with school swimming trips etc but they get paid less for “down time” in comparison to driving. Every business he knows is pushing for split shifts and can’t understand why no drivers want to do 7-10am and then drive home to come back and do 2-5. Is insane and a very rapid staff turnover. If you do just minibuses, you can’t do swimming as often they need coaches for 2 classes at the same time. in term time my DH can take home £480-650 with a mix of school runs /swimming and full on day trips/armed forces relocations/coach tours but in school holidays he’s only guaranteed £300 a week and a lot of that is imaginaryof yard work where they are put to cleaning and maintenance. He’s lucky that we can save a bit each month so he can take a bit unpaid but other drivers with families are down heavily reliant on uc.

My kids get a school minibus as we are rural. I would say it’s tremendously handy as I can start my working day at 8:15 rather than post school day at 9:15. I think you’d be looking at parents that are struggling to drop off and make work. I’d also consider a pick up to be dropped off at breakfast club if there is one.

Depending on what’s going on locally I’d consider club drop offs too. It would be very handy to have dc ferried to gymnastics, dance , rugby post school so I could pick up after work. You may find you can get groups of dc all going so becomes cost effective. I’d pay about £8 per child per journey.

I've taken a look at costs for DD's old school, which charges on a termly basis (in advance):
Park and Ride to school (mornings only) 3.5 miles £150/term
Train and bus station to school (about a mile) £95/term one way, £163 return
Some families from further out are paying £500/term
(3 terms/year - about 4 or 5 weeks shorter than state school because of longer days).