Bus Éireann School Transport Bus Tickets

Bus Éireann issue some temporary school tickets and advise that evidence of payment can be used for travel in interim

All students who have paid for tickets will be carried on school buses

Bus Éireann has issued the vast majority of school tickets required for students using the School Transport Scheme this term.

To allay any concerns for the minority of parents who have not yet received these in the post, the company has decided to issue temporary email tickets to any families whose tickets have been processed since Wednesday, 20 August 2014. Bus Éireann will also accept receipt of payment or email confirmation from anyone who paid before the deadline of 1 August 2014. This is a temporary interim measure to ensure all passengers who have paid will have access to our services. We also continue to operate our Freephone helpline number 1800 945 945 from 9am to 8pm and would ask any parents or guardians with concerns or queries, to contact this number.

The company would like to refute reports that 30,000 schoolchildren are awaiting school tickets. We have issued over 85,000 tickets to date in response to some 91,000 payments received to date, almost 95% of tickets due.  Some 20,000 of these payments were made late, after the closing date.  The number of tickets issued is only slightly behind the figure that was issued at the same stage last year.

Today, on the first day of term for secondary school, we have had no reports of operational issues and all pupils have been collected and taken to their schools as normal. All school transport provision is in order and services are running normally.

Any parents who pay late for their tickets will have them issued to them in due course, but submitting payments late increases the possibility of a delay in receiving a ticket. We will endeavour to have all tickets to all families as soon as possible however, and our school transport staff are working overtime to ensure this.

This is the first year that tickets are being issued through a central reservation system and not by our 11 regional school transport offices. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused and ask for patience over the coming days as we work through a small backlog, owing to the introduction of the new online school transport system last month complicated by the large proportion of late payments. There were some technical glitches with the new system that were promptly rectified and we extended the payment dateline by one week earlier this month, to alleviate any inconvenience this may have caused.

The School Transport Scheme is operated on behalf of the Department of Education & Skills are we are in daily contact with the Department. We are working to ensure that pupils are not discommoded, and all pupils who have received, or will shortly receive a ticket, will be carried.  Parents should register online at Buseireann.ie if they have not already done so. Agents are also at hand with advice and information on our Freephone helpline 1800 945 945. Further information is also available in the news or school transport sections of Buseireann.ie.

Tuesday, 26th August, 2014