Students making changes on transport

Before being elected as a sabbatical officer, I was a commuter student at my university for 5 years.

Over that time, the price of the single student ticket increased gradually from £1 to £1.70. It doesn’t sound like a lot but it soon adds up.

It had a huge impact on my studies. I reduced the number of days I spent on campus as I often did not have the funds to afford it. Eventually, I had to find a part-time job to cover the costs which were easily in their hundreds for each year.

In 2021, following a campaign from youth activists, the “Zoom pass” was introduced in Sheffield, a travel pass often advertised to students that offers discounted tickets and fares to 18–21-year-olds. Sadly, I was already too old.

I watched the service get drastically reduced, the timetable became more inconsistent and the prices of student tickets got increasingly more expensive. And on top of all this – the bus would never even arrive on time.

Commuter students are entitled to the same learning opportunities and experiences that university offers.

Commuter students make up a large proportion of our student population at Sheffield Hallam. In fact, we make up over 55 per cent. Add to the mix that 57 per cent of our students are also mature and more students are working than ever and you’re left with a huge cohort of students who are struggling to afford to attend teaching on campus and who are too busy and tired to engage in campaigning.

The university has made steps to adapt to the needs of our diverse student body – a move towards more online or hybrid teaching, a condensed timetable with longer hours over fewer days. But students are still struggling. The solution must be to make transport cheaper.

Time to campaign

In the last academic year, Hallam Students’ Union launched its third iteration of the cost of living survey and its results were damning.

We created a set of recommendations that would enable us to develop student support and lobby for positive change, at a local and national level, to help ease the burden on our students.

For our “Cheaper Transport Campaign,” we committed to lobbying the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), those responsible for economic development, transport and regeneration of South Yorkshire, for cheaper transport for students.

We want:

1. The Combined Authority to make the “Zoom pass” available to all students across South Yorkshire, regardless of age, on buses and trams
2. A reduction in fares overall

In the meantime, we promoted our campaign on our social media platforms, asking students to share their commuter experiences, with the help of a small cash incentive – the winner having the next few months of their travel expenses paid for.

Eventually, with thanks to our Vice Chancellor, we were finally able to set up a meeting with our officer team and the South Yorkshire Mayor, Oliver Coppard in October. We discussed all the good stuff: the importance of affordable transport for Hallam students, the student testimonies we had collected, as well as the requests laid out in our campaign.

Since our meeting, the Mayor has opened a public consultation on taking back control of South Yorkshire’s buses through franchising. Bus franchising will give SYMCA powers to decide what routes buses take, when and where they operate, the quality and reliability of the service, as well as the price of fares.

With decentralised decision-making, things can happen faster – local people better understand local issues and can find local solutions.

Ten foot testimony

We began brainstorming how to engage commuter students, including students that use public transport to travel to placements, with the public consultation. But public consultations are boring and commuter students are time poor.

We needed to mobilise, build student support and solidarity to get people to engage with public policy decision-makers and sign the consultation. How do you get students to be active citizens in the local transport agenda?

I enlisted my good friend and fellow artist, Johnsey, to help us facilitate an outreach event to garner some energy, excitement or at least some interest around bus franchising.

The ten foot testimony, we would call it. We secured a huge piece of paper on the floor, in the entrance of our main university building, inviting students to write their public transport experiences.

It was really simple, and I was worried students simply wouldn’t care. Fortunately, passers-by wanted to contribute (staff included) and the ten foot testimony became twenty feet in no time at all.

While the testimony itself is no good to the Mayor, we had the opportunity to speak to so many students, encouraging them to sign the consultation.

We successfully managed to engage students in the conversation, had a fun time doing it, and now have a lovely, long and bright piece of documentation to show for it.

Many students feel disenfranchised when it comes to decision making in their towns and cities. We firmly believe that they should have an active say in how decisions are made and how it impacts them.

Next stop, success

The public consultation closed a few weeks ago, and it might be a while before we hear the official result and the following decisions made on bus franchising.

Recently, one of our largest bus providers in Sheffield, First Buses, announced that they would be keeping the price of the student single fare at £1.50, following the bus fare cap rising. Not only that, but they extended the eligibility of the student ticket for all of South Yorkshire, not just Sheffield. We are hopeful that Stagecoach will follow suit.

By making commuter students visible, we were able to gather their voice and campaign for more affordable and accessible travel. Whilst we’re not there yet, we’ve engaged students as active citizens in transport policy and displayed the benefits of devolution in practice.

When it comes to decision making on transport, universities and their student unions can play a huge part in lobbying for an improved commuter student experience. It’s easy for their voices to go amiss in policy making when they are time poor, busy, not on campus or simply don’t think anything will happen fast but the sector can play a role in empowering students to have a more accessible, affordable and sustainable commuter student experience. It’s not just limited to the classroom, it’s also about getting there.

This blog is part of our series on commuter students, click here to read more.