According to De Lijn, almost 6 percent of students who use student transport in special education currently spend longer than the proposed 90 minutes per journey on the bus. At the end of September this was still 5.5 percent, reports VRT NWS.
Three months after the start of the school year, about 6 percent of special education students are still on the bus longer than the promised 90 minutes. At the end of September, the public transport company promised to conduct an evaluation to further reduce journey times. It turns out that this evaluation did not result in a general improvement.
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VRT NWS brings a testimony from the mother of a 12-year-old boy. Since the autumn holidays, he has suddenly been on the bus for 103 minutes, while a single journey used to take 57 minutes.
De Lijn says it will have started extra journeys after the autumn holidays. “When you create a new ride for a number of children who were previously riding on another ride, this also means a change to the existing ride. And therefore change for the students who continue to travel on their existing journey. (…) A long journey during peak hours also means that in a number of cases a journey time of less than 90 minutes is not feasible.”
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