School transport

Types of school transport assistance we provide

• Daily buses/our school bus service , which are run for us by our service agents. Contact a service agent if you would like a school bus service for your school.
• Funding to direct resourced (DR) schools/networks if your school is going to provide its own school transport. This option is available in 2021.
• Funding to Māori-medium schools to provide your own school transport.
• A conveyance allowance for caregivers to assist with transport costs 
• SESTA for students with special needs.
• School transport service agent contact details

Eligible students

To be eligible for assistance, students need to meet these 3 criteria:

1. Type of school

For students to be eligible, your school must be one of:

• a mainstream state school
• a state-integrated school 
• a Māori-medium school
• a partnership school.

2. Distance between home and school

Students must live more than a certain distance from their nearest appropriate school. The distance is over the shortest public road or pedestrian route from the student’s home roadside gate to their closest appropriate school’s front gate:

• students from Years 1–8 must live at least 3.2km from their closest appropriate school
• students from Year 9 or over must live at least 4.8km from their closest appropriate school.

3. Suitable public transport

If suitable public transport options are available for a student, we will not offer school transport assistance. To be suitable, a public transport service must meet all of the following criteria:

• the public transport service travels within 2.4kms of the roadside gate of the student’s home
• the public transport service travels within 2.4kms of the closest appropriate school
• the public transport service does not require the student to change transport services more than once on a journey
• the public transport service has a suitable timetable:
• • allows morning pickup no earlier than 7am and enables the student to arrive at school before the school’s start time
  • allows afternoon pick up no later than one hour after the school day’s official end

Special Education School Transport Assistance (SESTA)

SESTA is for students who have special educational needs and may have difficulty getting to the school that can meet these needs.  Go to the parents website for further information on SESTA .

SESTA is not for:

• students on ACC (the Accident Compensation Corporation). ACC may help students who are temporarily incapacitated because of an accident
• students boarding at residential schools who need transport to and from home for the weekend/holidays. 

Applying for SESTA

Caregivers will initiate the SESTA application, but there is a section on the application form that you must complete as well.

All requests for SESTA must be made using the SESTA application form .

SESTA transport operators

SESTA transport operators from the 2012 tender process