Ms Miriam Flynn:

We are at 179,000 tickets issued for school transport this year. We are 5% up on last year. We are conscious that we have quite a tight period to get services up and running. We appreciate there are challenges for families in particular who may not get tickets. As advised previously, it is an eligibility scheme. There are clearly defined criteria to determine who is eligible for a school transport ticket and priority goes to ensuring that cohort is facilitated first and has tickets. All other pupils are then given access to capacity where it exists.

On the tickets, we are looking at smart ticketing with the Department of education. We have an ongoing project to see if we can replace existing tickets with a smart ticket. The intention is it would give us far more information on utilisation of services, modernise a number of areas around the application process and make it more customer friendly in facilitating support for parents.