School Student Transport Scheme (SSTS)

Through the provision of subsidised travel, the NSW Government ensures that all NSW school students who do not live in close proximity to the school attended have access to education. NSW has the most generous scheme in Australia for transporting students. The Scheme provides subsidised travel for eligible school students who are residents of NSW between their normal place of residence and the school they attend. If they meet the eligibility criteria, students can receive subsidised travel on Government rail, Government and private bus and ferry services, and long distance coaches. In areas where there is no bus, rail or ferry service, a subsidy towards the cost of transporting students to and from school in private vehicles is provided.

Eligibility

Subsidised travel is only available for travel between home and school. The Scheme does not extend to other activities such as educational excursions, sporting fixtures, participation in work experience programs, attendance at joint secondary-TAFE programs, multi campus high schools, attendance at Saturday schools, attendance at pre-schools, attendance at mini-schools (except for full time geographically isolated distance education students), before and after school care and child minding premises.
School students are eligible for subsidised travel provided they are:

• A resident of NSW, and
• 4 years and 6 months of age or older, or
• An infant student (Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2), irrespective of the distance from home to school, or
• A primary student (Years 3-6), and reside more than 1.6 kilometres (radial distance) from the school attended, or 2.3 kilometres or more by the most direct practicable walking route to the nearest point of entry to the school, or
• A secondary student (Year 7-12), and reside more than 2 kilometres (radial distance) from the school attended, or 2.9 kilometres or more by the most direct practicable walking route to the nearest point of entry to the school, and
• Enrolled at a registered day school.

TAFE students are eligible for subsidised travel if they are under 18 years of age at the 1st January at the year of application and are:

• Enrolled in full-time TAFE course for a minimum of 20 hours over at least 4 days per week,
• Not employed,
• Live more that 3.2 km from the college by the most direct practicable walking route, and
• Attend the college closest to their home at which enrolment is available.

Application process

1. Application forms for subsidised travel are available from the school or college.
2. A separate application form must be lodged for every part of the journey to be undertaken with a different transport operator. For instance, a journey using the services of two bus operators and CityRail would require three applications. If a journey is undertaken on two separate services of the same transport operator, only one application is necessary.
3. The completed application form is to be returned to the school or college.
4. The school or college then signs the form if the student meets the eligibility conditions. The form is then forwarded to the operator of the service for which the application has been made.
5. The operator rechecks the application ensuring that the student is eligible.
6. The operator then issues the student with a pass which identifies that it is solely for travel under SSTS. In some cases such as in rural areas, passes are not issued as the operator knows the students.

How often do students have to apply

A new application is required to be completed when a student:

• Enrols in Kindergarten,
• Progresses from Year 2 to be an eligible student in Year 3,
• Progresses from Year 6 to Year 7,
• Changes school, and/or
• Changes address.

Therefore, most students will only need to fill in the form three times during their school life if they remain at the same address and school.

Appeals process

If a student has been deemed ineligible to be granted subsidised travel by the school or operator, the first step is for parents/guardian to reapply in writing to the nearest Contracts and Compliance Office of the Department of Transport, setting out the reasons why subsidised travel should be provided. Should the Department not approve subsidised travel and the parents/guardian believe that there are special circumstances such as safety and/or hardship issues, they can appeal the Department's decision. These appeals are heard by the SSTS Appeals Panel which is an independent panel that considers each case on its merits. Members of the Appeals Panel consist of representatives of the Department of Education and Training, Transport Safety Bureau and a rotating representative of either the Parents and Citizens Federation, Catholic Schools Association or NSW Parents' Council.

Contact detail for the Contract and Compliance Offices are listed below.

SSTS Appeals Panel Application Form - 83 kb PDF

Which bus can I use my bus pass on and why?

Your bus pass has been issued to you because you applied for it through the Department of Transport (NSW). The Department in turn contacts our company to provide you with a place on a bus service. This is usually a dedicated school bus or it can also be a scheduled public bus service. A combination of both is also possible. The place allocated to you is there wether you use it or not so you cannot choose to use another bus service other than your normal one. If you do so you will be asked to pay the appropriate bus fare for the journey you are intending to make. However if you have missed your normal bus service, explain to the driver why and he may allow you to travel. 

Why do we allocate places on buses?

Our company carries over 2,000 passengers and 5,000 school children per day with the greatest demands being in the mornings and afternoon school start and finish times. In order to ensure that all passengers reach their destination safely and efficiently we must manage this task with resources we have available. If you the student do not travel on the buses provided for you, then there is a real possibility that your service and others have to be curtailed.

The government only pays for between 77% and 79% of the number of school days for each child.

Even so, on many occasions less than this percentage of pass holders is traveling. And it is these non-traveling pass-holders who have been labeled “phantom riders” by the media.

What isn’t realised is that bulk of these “phantom riders” is due to education policies over which bus companies have no control.

Remember each school bus usually picks up at a number of different schools, especially since that State schools have become de-zoned. For intense, a typical school bus journey is likely to collect pupils from the local high school, or one of two primary schools, the local catholic school, a local private school, and then pick up out-of-area school pupils at one or two interchange points.

On any particular day, one or more of these schools may not have pupils in attendance for the whole day. This can be due to private school choosing different school holidays; most State schools having 3 or 4 “ pupil-free-days” each year, all on different days from each other; and State high schools electing to have different finishing times on different days of the week.

However on each private school holiday, on each “pupil-free-day” and on each early-finish day, the school special bus still has to operate, in order to carry pupils from other schools.

Just because 25% of the pupils may not be in attendance, the school bus driver’s wages cannot be reduced by 25% to allow for the “phantom riders”; nor will the fuel companies accept 25% less payments for the distillate used.

Conditions of Travel
Bus Passes are issued on the following bassis (these conditions are also printed on the back of the passes):