Travel & Transport
Find information about transport and help with travel for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Public Transport
Children & young people with SEND can apply direct to Transport for Greater Manchester for a National Travel Concessionary Pass. This allows for free travel on buses, trains and trams in Greater Manchester between 9.30am and midnight, Monday to Friday and all day at weekends and public holidays.
For more information and to find out if you are eligible please visit below.
Travel Passes for Disabled People Zero Fare Bus Passes
Home to School Transport
Pupils who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and who attend a mainstream school may receive free transport if they fulfil the criteria detailed in the transport policy below.
Pupils who have an EHCP who attend special schools or resourced schools will not automatically receive free transport. They may, however, receive free transport to school if, in addition to having an EHCP, they fulfil one or more of the criteria in Section 3 of the Transport Policy or if the council considers that their circumstances are exceptional and that transport provision should be made because of these exceptional circumstances.
Post 16 Transport
Personal Travel Budgets
A Personal Transport Budget (PTB) is a payment designed to help you make arrangements which will enable you to facilitate your child accessing school. You can use the budget in any way you wish, to ensure your child attends school every day, is picked up and dropped off on time and in a fit state to learn. For example, it can help towards covering the costs of running a family car or arranging with another member of the family or friends to assist with childcare, enabling you to make the journey. The payment can also be put to use by arranging childcare for a younger sibling whilst the older sibling is taken to school in the family car. The payment is a fixed amount based on proximity and bears no relationship to the cost of a hired vehicle or the specific journey you may use when taking your child to school.
A PTB is available to children with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and who have been assessed as eligible to receive home to school transport. The PTB is granted at the discretion of the Local Authority and is not automatically given upon request. Parent/carers seeking to access the PTB must be found to be eligible for transport assistance before being considered for a PTB.
Information on how to apply for Home to School Transport is available from the Integrated Transport Unit. They can be contacted by email at itu@tameside.gov.uk
Before granting a PTB, the Local Authority will investigate whether there is any transport currently in place that your child could be placed onto at a lower cost than providing you with a PTB. While your child’s specific needs will be considered when they are assessed for free school transport eligibility and when identifying their most appropriate form of transport, PTB assessments are based solely on whether or not they are cost effective for the Local Authority.
If it is not cost effective for the Local Authority to provide you with a PTB, it will not be granted even if it is your preferred method of receiving transport assistance. Students that are eligible for free school transport but for whom a PTB is not cost effective will be allocated to the most appropriate alternative form of transport assistance instead.
