Working out eligibility for school bus passes

Picture of a secondary school age child walking near school

Quick, easy, fair

QPaths helps

  • school admissions teams
  • school transport planners, and
  • active travel network planners

get the job done.

Online tool to batch process home-to-school walking routes – or for instance response including via API

QPaths gives officers the gift of time

North Tyneside save weeks of work (compared to their previous process) by using QPaths. Listen to James Silvester in this extract of a webinar

Save time

As parents or guardians of the children who will start secondary school next September begin to consider their options, many want to know if their child could be eligible for a free bus pass. Without an easy way to find out, they often phone to ask. These calls can needlessly waste a lot of officers’ time because distance eligibility can be automated online with QPaths.

Accurate results are fairer

QPaths uses the Ordnance Survey Paths and Road Network to calculate door-to-gate distances. Yes, you read that right. QPaths plots the distance from the child’s home to the nearest school gate (rather than the centroid of the building). It offers better accuracy than any other tool we’re aware of.

Fewer appeals

Its accuracy and the clear presentation of evidence also takes the friction out of appeals. North Tyneside found that with QPaths there was “a lot less back and forth” and that most appeals were resolved first time.

Safe results every time

QPaths makes it easy to block path segments and exclude them from walking (or walking and driving) calculations.

QPaths unique functionality which enables council officers to block out ‘unsafe’ paths, for example, paths without street lights. There’s an obvious benefit to this in that results are quick, reliable ,and consistent.

And there’s an opportunity too: authorities can calculate the payback period of street lights (or some other infrastructure) which makes walking routes safe, promoting active travel to school and reducing the demand for school transport.

Let’s talk