The Road To Smooth School Transportation: Insights Into COOP’s Service
COOP School Transport provide church and independent schools with government-funded free transport.
It’s a great service that helps thousands of children get where they need to be each day – and as the new school year approaches, here at Lovin Malta, we’re keen to help parents understand how they work behind the scenes, and how to help them be as efficient as possible so that everyone benefits.
Back in July, a survey was carried out by telephone, reaching 500 random COOP clients to collect very important feedback. University of Malta statistician Dr Vincent Marmara ran a survey to find out not only how happy parents are with the service but to also see what can be done to improve it.
The results of the survey show that 63.5% of parents using the Government’s free transportation scheme are unaware of the initiative’s regulations, and why they matter.
COOP’s clients are very satisfied with the pick-up and drop-off time allocated. But, what are the key factors that reduce punctuality?
The first is how full your child’s van is. COOP School Transport plan their routes according to demand, based on applications from parents (or other legal guardians) and the non-state-schools requesting their services. However, the rules of the initiative are strict: to set off, a van needs to be 70% full. If someone drops out at the last minute so that their van would have less than the required number of children, that van cannot go.
This means COOP School Transport have to plan different routes for other vans leaving the school quickly and carefully to include those children. This is a brilliant policy for reducing traffic and pollution: however, it can result in longer routes with more drop-offs, which take more time.
There can also be delays because of the system via which students board COOP School Transport vans after school, in which the vans must wait for their turn to load students. So that every student boards the correct van, and for the safety of the students, schools have a careful process for boarding, route by route, one grade at a time. Of course, a driver can’t depart until all their students are settled safely aboard and so, although they’d all love to get their wheels rolling promptly, not every driver can be the first to leave! And as a bigger school means more routes, and where there are more routes, there are more vans, then there’s a higher chance, that your child will be in one of the vans setting off a few minutes later than dismissal time.
Thirdly, the COOP School Transport is also delayed when any parent is not present at the pick-off and drop-off of their child. The drivers with COOP School Transport always appreciate seeing you at the roadside ready and waiting.
Last but not least, there’s the eternal issues with traffic: traffic jams, roadworks and diversions!
And just in case you were wondering, there are also strict rules about the vehicles that COOP School Transport can use – they must be licenced to operate under Transport Services Regulations SL 499.56). So, while it might be great fun for our youngsters to ride to school on open-top or Malta Heritage buses, that’s a treat to keep for the next school holidays.
Tag someone who needs to start making use of free school transport!
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