Consequences of the 2026 fuel crisis

[old man emu]

Every weekday morning during school term, two diesel-powered buses pass my place to begin their school runs, picking up kids from farms to take to teh schools in town. I don't know how long these pick-up routes are, but I suspect around 100 kms would not be too far wrong. Then in the afternoon they do the run in reverse direction. That's two buses, privately owned on a government contract. There are another three school runs for the local schools. There is also a run of 120 kms total or more to schools in Dubbo. 

 

The fuel mileage rate is no doubt a fixed amount in those contracts, and that amount would have been set at the beginning of the year. How will the bus company continue to operate with fuel prices rising as they are? The obvious thing is that the buses will stop running. That will mean that these kids will not be able to get to school. It is too inefficient for individual families to be driving their kids to and from school each day. I have a neighbour who lives "close" to town at about 25 kms. That's 100 kms per day taking the kids in the morning; coming home , and doing the same in the afternoon.

 

Will this fuel crisis spawn another generatiion of kids who miss out on a decent education, even though they might be home-schooled? Look at the current crop of under-18s whose education was disrtupted by COVID. Look at the social problems we got from that. 

[pmccarthy]

A friend who drives a big school bus found it is often empty or near empty, but the government contract does not allow a smaller bus nor to not run empty if there are no kids.

[old man emu]

Yeah, the buses run on pupil-free days, too.