Parents in Rotterdam who take their child to and from school who are entitled to adapted transport will continue to receive a mileage allowance of €0,38.
The municipality has decided to maintain this arrangement, which has existed since 2022, as an alternative to the controversial student transport via Trevvel, Dagblad010 reports.
The compensation was increased at the end of 2022 to encourage parents to transport their child themselves instead of using taxi transport. Financially, this arrangement is more advantageous for the municipality, because the costs per pupil are lower than when hiring Trevvel.
Care alderman Ronald Buijt speaks of positive experiences with this mileage allowance. However, he has no insight into whether more and more parents are switching to this arrangement since the many complaints about Trevvel piled up. Trevvel has been under fire for years because of problems with punctuality, communication and incidents in which vulnerable students were not picked up on time or not at all.
The city council has been complaining about Trevvel's poor performance since the previous coalition period (2018-2022). Despite this, the transport company continues to temporarily active in Rotterdam. The municipality has concluded a bridging agreement that guarantees the continuity of student transport until the summer of 2026 at the latest. This means that the new transport agreement, which results from an ongoing tender procedure, will not come into effect until 21 July 2026.
Political parties such as Leefbaar Rotterdam and the Jongere Ouderen Unie would have preferred to see Trevvel replaced sooner. However, the desire to terminate the contract more quickly failed due to the complexity and risks that such a step entails. Terminating the contract prematurely could cause legal and practical complications, which would jeopardize the continuity of student transport.
Parents who opt for the mileage allowance will retain the option of transporting their child themselves and at the same time being financially compensated. How many parents actually make use of this and whether this arrangement will be expanded in the future remains unclear for the time being.
