Secondary school kids bus pass not valid for after school studies activities etc

darklordsbane

Hi
My daughter has a school bus pass, she is doing her junior exams in June this year, she also plays hockey after school and has after school studies.
her bus pass is only valid until 5pm this is mostly fine for normal school and hockey,
the problem occurs when she stays until 6pm for after school studies, and she and her friends try to get on the bus,
depending on the driver ( which a couple are very nice and let them on when they say what they were doing)
but there are some drivers who make them pay and don't want to know what they were doing, "why should I believe you you could have been to a friends house or shopping"
tonight was the worst yet, the driver tried to confiscate the first girls pass and said either that or get off the bus, when my daughter started saying you can't confiscate it it cost €300 he said "nothing to do with you mind your own business". they finally got the card back and the 2 of them got off the bus,
I am wondering is there a way to avoid this in future has anyone heard of a special dispensation for kids doing after school study so they can use their bus passes

sorry for the rant
Regards
D

rx8

After school activities are just that....give her some change for the bus on days that she'll be using it after 5 .
No more rows with drivers or passes confiscated.

darklordsbane

She does after school studies almost every day, so what's the point of a bus pass for 3rd and 6th year pupils if they have to pay extra to travel later on those days, surely someone else has had this problem will cie/dublin bus or whatever they are called these days, anyone know if they would accept a letter from the schools and give permission to travel say up to 6.30pm for those students

chocksaway

You are wasting your time and energy to be honest. They've set a time period for the ticket to be used and thats more or less that. If you want her to be able to ttavel at all times get a full weekly ticket

cdebru

The leap card weekly cap for a child is €8.20 a week and that gives them unlimited travel 7 days a week all day.

€300 you say the current ticket you have costs would give you around 36 weeks which would easily cover the school year and be a lot more useful than the current ticket.

Probably not much good to you now as you have already spent the €300.

Other than that you could contact the depot manager, for the route your child takes and explain the situation, school children should never be left behind even outside the hours of their tickets especially if it is fairly clear they are traveling from school ie uniforms school bags etc.

PS the child leap ticket is for under 16s I don't know what secondary school pupils over 16 are supposed to do ?

Victor

cdebru wrote: »

PS the child leap ticket is for under 16s I don't know what secondary school pupils over 16 are supposed to do ?

'Scholar' tickets or student tickets.

darklordsbane

Thank you I didn't think of the depot manager much easier to talk to a branch than head office

Seaswimmer

Victor wrote: »

'Scholar' tickets or student tickets.

I think scholar tickets have the same time limitations. My daughter uses a combination of scholar tickets and student Leap.

@Op
Dont forget that once they are over 16 they can get a student travel card with integrated Leap. Its not just for 3rd level. I always make sure there is credit on it for situations when the scholar card wont do..

My daughter is also entitled to the "free" (€300) travel to and from school but we discontinued it as it was almost more expensive by the time you paid for weekend/after school travel in addition to the €300.

My suggestion would be to use a student rambler and let her use that on the days when she knows she is going to be late. Bit more expensive but takes away the chance of confrontation described in the OP.

cdebru

Victor wrote: »

'Scholar' tickets or student tickets.

I meant on the leap card there is no scholar leap and the student leap cap is a big jump from the €8.20 for under 16 to €20 for a child still in secondary school.

AlekSmart

darklordsbane wrote: »

Hi
My daughter has a school bus pass, she is doing her junior exams in June this year, she also plays hockey after school and has after school studies.
her bus pass is only valid until 5pm this is mostly fine for normal school and hockey,
the problem occurs when she stays until 6pm for after school studies, and she and her friends try to get on the bus,
depending on the driver ( which a couple are very nice and let them on when they say what they were doing)
but there are some drivers who make them pay and don't want to know what they were doing, "why should I believe you you could have been to a friends house or shopping"
tonight was the worst yet, the driver tried to confiscate the first girls pass and said either that or get off the bus, when my daughter started saying you can't confiscate it it cost €300 he said "nothing to do with you mind your own business". they finally got the card back and the 2 of them got off the bus,
I am wondering is there a way to avoid this in future has anyone heard of a special dispensation for kids doing after school study so they can use their bus passes

sorry for the rant
Regards
D

Did this situation arise on a Bus Atha Cliath or Bus Eireann service ?

As far as my memory allows,I think Bus Eireann issued/s TWO types of Free Travel Pass...Standard and Special.

The Standard pass was available only on a point to point basis on Bus Eireann services whilst the Special was also available on Dublin Bus services.

However my experience is now several years out of date,so open to challenge.

The salient point however I suppose is that,just as with the Schoolchild Fare,it is only available to children attending attending classes between the stated hours and does NOT cover extra-curricular activities such as Sports or Study Time.

At the end of the day,its just another example of another of our "Free" Schemes being examined and restructured in the light of insufficient funds to operate it ?

darklordsbane

Dublin bus she travels from Greystones to Bray and Bray to Greystones 184 is best but 84 at a push

VG31

The 5 day Child (under 16) Rambler is valid all day (after 5 pm and at weekends).
http://dublinbus.ie/en/Fares--Tickets/Tickets/Child-and-Scholar-Tickets-/

Peregrine

I've used both the Schoolchild and Scholar tickets as late as 6:30pm and never had a problem.

If she's under 16, she can buy the 5 day Child Rambler ticket which is €8.20. There are no limitations on when you can use it.

Be careful not to buy the 10 Journey Schoolchild ticket which is also €8.20 and only valid until 5pm like the one she has now.

AlekSmart wrote: »

At the end of the day,its just another example of another of our "Free" Schemes being examined and restructured in the light of insufficient funds to operate it ?

I knew we could blame this on the recession somehow..

But schoolchild fares have been limited to certain times of the day for many years now, I suspect since as long as they've been around.

AlekSmart

Nimrod 7 wrote: »

I've used both the Schoolchild and Scholar tickets as late as 6:30pm and never had a problem.

If she's under 16, she can buy the 5 day Child Rambler ticket which is €8.20. There are no limitations on when you can use it.

Be careful not to buy the 10 Journey Schoolchild ticket which is also €8.20 and only valid until 5pm like the one she has now.



I knew we could blame this on the recession somehow..

But schoolchild fares have been limited to certain times of the day for many years now, I suspect since as long as they've been around.

Not quite the same thing Nimrod7.....The funding for the DSP's Free Travel Scheme has been provided on a highly dubious fashion for decades now.
This predates our current recession and,in fact,predates the last two recessions as well.

Thankfully,the Leapcard is dealing with the anomalies regarding out-of-hours useage,as the remote validator will now default to the higher of the two childrens fares €1.15

* Schoolchild Cash Fares apply only during normal school terms, for travel between home and school Monday to Friday up to 17:00hrs and on Saturday up to 13:30hrs. Outside of these hours a flat fare of €1.15 will apply to the child fare.

Many Leapcard users will never look at the display,but instead just react to the transaction successful audible signal and walk on......not noticing that €1.15 has been debited instead of the 70c they fully expected...even at 1830.....

Conway635

edit: posted here in error rather than in new thread.

Sorry.

cdebru

AlekSmart wrote: »

Not quite the same thing Nimrod7.....The funding for the DSP's Free Travel Scheme has been provided on a highly dubious fashion for decades now.
This predates our current recession and,in fact,predates the last two recessions as well.

Thankfully,the Leapcard is dealing with the anomalies regarding out-of-hours useage,as the remote validator will now default to the higher of the two childrens fares €1.15



Many Leapcard users will never look at the display,but instead just react to the transaction successful audible signal and walk on......not noticing that €1.15 has been debited instead of the 70c they fully expected...even at 1830.....

Yeah but it matters little once they reach €8.20 they are capped which is the same price as the 5 day rambler so they get 2 days for free.

_Kaiser_

darklordsbane wrote: »

She does after school studies almost every day, so what's the point of a bus pass for 3rd and 6th year pupils if they have to pay extra to travel later on those days, surely someone else has had this problem will cie/dublin bus or whatever they are called these days, anyone know if they would accept a letter from the schools and give permission to travel say up to 6.30pm for those students

This will be unpopular...

While I understand the frustration and embarrassment caused here, the bottom line is the ticket is valid for normal school times.

If your daughter CHOOSES to do after school studies/activities then that's really on her/you and does not give her automatic entitlement to use her ticket outside of these hours.

I'm no big fan of Dublin Bus and the service provided by some of the drivers, but from what you've said the driver was perfectly correct to refuse her in the circumstances - ranting to his manager because you feel that she should be given an exception is neither fair not justified IMO. If anything the other drivers who DID let her travel after hours are probably at fault for setting an unrealistic expectation that this was allowed.

As suggested above the best thing here really is to buy her a ticket for use when the school pass isn't valid.

cdebru

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

This will be unpopular...

While I understand the frustration and embarrassment caused here, the bottom line is the ticket is valid for normal school times.

If your daughter CHOOSES to do after school studies/activities then that's really on her/you and does not give her automatic entitlement to use her ticket outside of these hours.

I'm no big fan of Dublin Bus and the service provided by some of the drivers, but from what you've said the driver was perfectly correct to refuse her in the circumstances - ranting to his manager because you feel that she should be given an exception is neither fair not justified IMO. If anything the other drivers who DID let her travel after hours are probably at fault for setting an unrealistic expectation that this was allowed.

As suggested above the best thing here really is to buy her a ticket for use when the school pass isn't valid.

I disagree, it is a poorly designed system that doesn't take account of the fact that a large number of children will have activities beyond the normal school hours, it is fairly obvious they are returning from school, uniform schoolbag etc, it is unfair to blame parents, pupils or drivers for trying to deal with a badly designed school ticket system which has clearly not been updated in 40+ years.
I mean the child can travel on Saturday with the ticket up to 13:30 how many schoolchildren are attending school on Saturday compared to how many do after school activities Monday to Friday ?

_Kaiser_

cdebru wrote: »

I disagree, it is a poorly designed system that doesn't take account of the fact that a large number of children will have activities beyond the normal school hours, it is fairly obvious they are returning from school, uniform schoolbag etc, it is unfair to blame parents, pupils or drivers for trying to deal with a badly designed school ticket system which has clearly not been updated in 40+ years.
I mean the child can travel on Saturday with the ticket up to 13:30 how many schoolchildren are attending school on Saturday compared to how many do after school activities Monday to Friday ?

While all that may be (and probably is) true, that still doesn't mean that the OP's daughter is entitled to use her pass outside of the current hours, nor does it make the driver or DB at fault for refusing her.

The solution here is to complain to the Department or local TD to get the system changed to better reflect the modern requirements, not give out about those who are merely following the current rules but have no ability to make the changes themselves.

Mrs OBumble

darklordsbane wrote: »

I am wondering is there a way to avoid this in future

Yes, there is a very simple way.

Travel home before the cut-off time, and do the after school study at home. Or pay the fare that is due.

As others have pointed out, there are a variety of cost-effective options. But really, that's irrelevant. Having her use a school pass outside the school hours is no different to having her use her granny's Free Travel pass.