Free tickets for students, but parents still do not know the timetable. “How and when will children get to school?”

Update 13:07

As our Reader informed us, some timetables are already available online.

The “BILET” program, adopted by the Bolesławiec County Council in July, provides for the County to finance named monthly tickets for students of public upper-secondary schools. It is to remain in effect until June 30, 2027, and the local government will allocate a total of PLN 1.7 million for its implementation.

In recent days, Bolesławiec County announced the dates for collecting the tickets. They are to be issued on August 28 and 31 at the PKS bus station ticket offices at 26 Wesoła Street in Bolesławiec. Meanwhile, some parents point out that information about the ticket itself does not solve the problem if it is still unknown what the network of connections will look like.

A Reader wrote to us:

Please take an interest in this matter, because this whole campaign involving “free tickets” for students in Bolesławiec County looks embarrassingly poor. The Bolesławiec County website carries information about collecting monthly tickets, while the PKS helpline in Bolesławiec says that the carrier does not even have a timetable yet. There are only a few days left before the school year begins, and parents and students still do not know the basic thing: how and when children will get to school.

She added:

The idea of free tickets for students can of course be viewed positively, but what good is it if everything organizationally looks like an unfinished project? There are no tickets, there is no timetable, there is no specific information, and communication with residents leaves much to be desired.

The Reader also drew attention to an especially important issue for students who begin their practical training very early in the morning:

Many children start their practical training at 6:00 a.m., and when I asked the helpline whether there would be buses after 5:00 a.m., I was told to buy my child a ticket from a private carrier.

She also added:

It is genuinely difficult to expect residents to applaud enthusiastically simply because “free tickets” have been announced. A free ticket is worth little if no one knows which bus to take, at what time, or where that bus will depart from at all. Parents have the right to expect specifics, especially since school starts in a few days and children’s daily commute needs to be planned.

She also criticized the way residents were informed:

If this was supposed to be a great success and a reason to boast, everything should first have been finalized organizationally, and only afterward should the media buzz have been created. For now, unfortunately, it looks more like an attempt to announce success before doing the basic work. Residents do not need promises and propaganda—they need tickets, a timetable, and certainty that their children will actually get to school.

Starosta: we are working on the network of connections

The issue of timetables was raised during the August session of the Bolesławiec County Council. Starosta Tomasz Gabrysiak informed the councillors at the time that nearly 1,400 applications for free tickets had been submitted by August 27. As he explained, the information contained in the applications helped the local government better determine the demand for connections:

This data (...) allowed us to continue working on the network of connections; these applications showed us which localities young people want to travel from. Because until now we did not have this data. And work is underway at our PKS to ensure that a bus appears on September 1 in all the localities from which applications were submitted.

As he noted, the changes concern the municipality and town of Nowogrodziec in particular:

This particularly concerns the municipality and town of Nowogrodziec. It seems that, essentially, we will reach almost all localities on September 1. We are trying to have the timetables appear online around Saturday.

According to the starosta’s announcement, the number of buses on individual routes will also be adjusted to actual demand:

Based on the applications that have been submitted, PKS will simply assess whether one bus is enough or whether two need to be sent. That will simply emerge from an analysis of the applications already received.

Nearly 1,400 applications before the program launch

Such a large number of applications shows that interest in the program is significant. At the same time, the information collected in the applications is to serve as the basis for refining the bus connections before the school year begins.

For parents, however, the key question remains when they will be able to check the exact departure times. The starosta’s announcement indicates that the timetables are to be published online around Saturday, August 29.

The “BILET” program covers journeys operated by PKS Bolesławiec. Free monthly tickets are to be issued to students who previously submitted the required applications. A valid school ID must be shown when collecting them.

The County’s funding of travel is intended to make students’ daily commute to school easier and reduce the costs incurred by families.