Blunkett calls for ￡154million nationwide yellow schoolbus service

摘要

Dedicated fleets of yellow schoolbuses should serve all primary and many secondary schools in mainland Britain, says the six-person all-party Yellow School Bus Commission chaired by former home secretary David Blunkett and sponsored by FirstGroup. If one in eight primary schoolchildren travelled from and to home by bus, Blunkett says the number of cars on the school run would drop by a fifth. He believes there has never been a more appropriate time to launch 'a practical set of proposals, with legislation on future energy requirements, climate change and local transport co-ordination all part of the current session of parliament'. The commission says the school run puts an extra million cars on the road at peak times, with a further 1.2million driving extra distances for school drop-offs on the way to work, adding one million tonnes of CO_2 pollution annually. In 20 years, the proportion of primary school pupils travelling by car has increased from 22% to 41 % and only 5% go by bus. In the 10 years to 2006, the average trip to primary school increased from 1.3 to 1.5miles for five to 10-year olds, and from 2.9 to 3.4miles for 11 to 16-year-olds.