Transport Subsidies

Victorian Conveyance Allowance

The Department of Education and Training (the Department) provides travel assistance in the form of a conveyance allowance to help families in rural and regional Victoria with the cost of transporting their children to their nearest appropriate school.

The conveyance allowance is a contribution towards transport costs and is not intended to cover the full cost of transporting children to and from school.  The allowance is an acknowledgement of the limited government-provided transport infrastructure available outside metropolitan Melbourne.

To be eligible for the conveyance allowance a student must reside in Victoria and  4.8 km or more  from the school they attend.  This distance is measured as the shortest practicable route from the student’s residence to the school.  The shortest practicable route is measured using all-weather public roads drivable by car.  The Department's Student Conveyance Allowance System (SCAS) uses property coordinates and road information in a similar way to GPS devices to automatically determine this distance.  As with GPS devices, it is possible the route determined by SCAS cannot be driven or is inaccurate.  If this occurs, families may apply through their school to have their child’s application reviewed by the Department’s Conveyance Allowance Unit (CAU). 

Applications forms for the Victorian Conveyance Allowance will be sent home next week.  They can also be downloaded and printed using the links below.   

NSW School Drive Subsidy

Those families living in NSW have access to the new School Drive Subsidy.  This subsidy provided eligible parents and guardians twice-yearly payments to help cover some of the expences of getting children to school.

To find out if you're eligible, and to apply online, visit  www.transport.nsw.gov.au/schooldrive

This scheme is a replacement for the PVC subsidy scheme which our NSW families have accessed previously.  Those families can stay on the PVC subsidy scheme if they wish, in which case they don't need to do anything. They can remain on the PVC scheme until the student leaves school or until they need to re-apply because a student changes address or changes schools.  

You can't be on two schemes at the same time though.   If you add new students after 17 January 2017, all students will automatically go onto the new School Drive Subsidy, including existing PVC subsidy students.

The above link provides further information as well as a scheme comparison tool to help you figure out what scheme would benefit you most.