Thousands of schoolchildren take the bus to school in Thuringia every day. After that, the buses usually run regular services – but the companies have to improvise more and more often.
Erfurt (dpa/th) – The shortage of teachers in Thuringia keeps messing up the bus schedules in local public transport. “The shortage of teachers is having an impact on public transport,” said Tilmann Wagenknecht, Managing Director of the Association of Central German Bus Companies (MDO), in Erfurt. The reason is the cancellation of classes and calls from the schools to the bus companies that children cannot wait for hours and have to be picked up early.
If buses had to jump in again at short notice to transport schoolchildren in the morning, this could have an impact on regular services, depending on the equipment of the company, said Wagenknecht. “That’s the downside of integrating school transport into scheduled services.”
According to association president Mario König – he himself runs a bus company in the Unstrut-Hainich district – such calls for help from schools do not occur every day due to hours being lost, but “once or twice a week”.
According to the association, around 2000 buses are on the road in Thuringia. Their number, but also the network they serve, has been greatly optimized in recent years. Only about 30 buses are on the road with electric drives. In addition to upcoming investments in new electric buses, the companies are also having problems with a latent lack of bus drivers.
According to estimates by the association, up to two-thirds of schoolchildren in Thuringia use local public transport. In view of the discussion about the Germany ticket for 49 euros and a separate Thuringian young people ticket for 28 euros, there is hope that local public transport will be expanded, especially in rural areas, said König.
School closures would have a negative impact on bus companies. “That makes public transport more expensive” – ??the route network would be thinned out if the students only had to be brought to a central point in a region in a kind of star traffic. The consequence is, “buses are then around in the morning”.
According to the Ministry of Education, there are more than 251,000 students at 967 general and vocational schools in Thuringia. According to one forecast, up to 10,000 Ukrainian schoolchildren are expected in Bavaria by the end of the year. This exacerbates the already serious shortage of teachers. According to the CDU faction, at least 500 more teachers are needed for the expected 10,000 additional students.