News and information

January 18, 2012: Message from the Transport Committee

Over the past weeks many parents have asked already for detailed bus routes, stops, and timings for the Laeken School. We fully understand those concerns as many of us are ourselves in the same situation.

While the survey carried out in November 2011 has helped a lot in getting an idea of the future transport needs, the Transport Committee is not yet in a position to make any concrete statement on how the future transport network will look like. (See: The Laeken transport survey: results.)

Detailed planning can only start once the enrolment for the transport ended (31 May 2012), as it will make a big difference whether we have to run a bus network for 500 pupils (the number reflected in the survey) or 1000 pupils. While the survey shows some pattern of the locations to be served, allowing us to make a rough estimate of the bus lines needed, the routes, stops, and timings can only be fixed once we know who effectively subscribed.

We therefore ask for your understanding that before the end of the enrollment for school transport the Transport Committee is not able to give any more detailed information. These will be communicated once the planning and a real-life test have been done, which will not be the case before August 2012.

However, the Transport Committee has set following targets to address your concerns, which might help to answer some of your questions:

1. As is the case today, the aim is that no bus line will be longer than 60-75 minutes to avoid excessively lengthy trips for the children. This sets a physical limit to the number of stops that can be added to a line. At the same time, for budgetary reasons buses need to be used in an efficient manner, i.e. serving a maximum of pupils with a minimum of lines.

2. Our target is that every single pupil living within the Brussels ring motorway will get a bus stop within approximately 500 m from his/her home. There might be cases where the walk will be longer, but in principle you can be sure that, no matter where you live within the ring, your child will be served by a stop nearby.

3. For the timing reasons mentioned under point 1, but also for budgetary considerations, we ask for your understanding that we will not be able to serve all pupils living outside the Brussels ring motorway. At the current stage of planning we can already guarantee coverage for the Overijse/La Hulpe area and Waterloo (as both have larger pupil populations), as well as the immediately adjacent Northern communes (i.e. Wemmel, Grimbergen, Vilvoorde). It is likely that we will also be in a position to cover other communes adjacent to the ringroad, such as Dilbeek and Zaventem, but it may get difficult for pupils living at farther distances – so the closer you live to the ring, the more likely it is that you will get a bus.

In any case, please, rest assured that we will do our best to set up a new transport network focused on the needs of the children – and that we will do this in an impartial and transparent manner.

We hope that this statement addresses your concerns and ask for your patience.

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FAQ:
Can access to the results been given? - For privacy reasons we cannot disclose the address database. Only a few members of the transport committee will have access to the address data which will be anonymous.
I would like to offer my help, how can I join? - There are currently around 10 parents involved. The next exercise we are planning is to make a bus routes scenario during November. If you have a background in logistics/transport or have experience with similar subjects and would like to help, please, contact the transport office via email.
For the moment, there are enough committee members.
Why don't you use software to plan the routes? - We can assure you that we are trying to find a tool and will keep on looking. We are in contact with another school who are using software.  However, the multitude of restrictions (different size buses, Brussels traffic, time of transport, price of software, etc.) make the use of software rather difficult. Nevertheless, different alternatives are being explored. If you have a good solution that has been tested and works, please let us know.