Context

Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to provide free travel for eligible children – broadly, those living more than 3 miles (or 2 miles for primary) from their school.

While the rule sounds simple, applying it is rarely straightforward. The distance isn’t measured ‘as the crow flies’, but along the shortest safe walking route. With relentless pressure on budgets, authorities have less room for discretionary entitlement. Accurate door-to-door measurements ensure that budget is reserved for those who are legally entitled.

North Tyneside Council processes between 500 and 600 applications every year. Each one requires a precise calculation to determine if the council is responsible for funding transport.

Challenge

In 2019, the council relied on a manual process. It took three members of staff working throughout the summer to process the 600 applications one by one.

The applications were processed using Google Maps, which created three issues:

• Speed: Checking road safety and measuring distances manually was labour-intensive and slowed down responses to anxious parents.
• Accuracy: Google Maps rounded up distances between points, creating errors on borderline cases. It also lacked data on pedestrian-only infrastructure like subways or alleyways, leading to incorrect rejections or approvals.
• Consistency: Google’s algorithm can give different results. A route calculated today might differ from one calculated a month ago, making it difficult to defend decisions during an appeal.

Stage 1: The switch to QPaths

North Tyneside, already a QRoutes customer, became a development partner and moved their assessments to QPaths. Unlike consumer mapping tools, QPaths uses the Ordnance Survey (OS) Paths network – the most comprehensive mapping data in the UK.

This OS data made a difference straight away. The system could ‘see’ walkways and cut-throughs that Google missed. Crucially, it allowed planners to inspect specific road sections using Street View and ‘block’ unsafe paths. This ensured that the computer only calculated routes that a child could actually walk safely.

Stage 2: Batch processing & audit trails

Instead of processing applications one by one, the team could now run hundreds of requests in a single batch. QPaths automatically calculated the distance from the home to the nearest specific school gate (handling multiple gates per site).

Critically, the system solved the ‘repeatability’ issue. Every decision generated an audit trail. If a family appealed a decision, the council could pull up the exact map and data used to make the original ruling, making for an easier appeals process.

Outcome

In the first year of use, the council processed 510 applications using QPaths. The summer workload that previously tied up three staff members has been cut down to one week’s work for person, speeding up responses to parents.

Key results

• Speed: Replaced manual checking with batch processing, allowing the team to focus on tasks.
• Fairness: Removed ‘rounding errors’ and missing paths from the equation to give every child an accurate assessment.
• Defensibility: Created a solid audit trail for appeals, reducing disputes.