Mum's fury after teen, 13, spends up to FOUR HOURS a day travelling to and from school due to 'unreliable' buses

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

A Rochdale mum has expressed her anger at the transport network after her teenage daughter spent up to FOUR HOURS a day travelling to and from school by bus.

Amanda Schofield said that 13-year-old Tess could sometimes spend as long as two hours travelling to school in the morning and two hours back, often with big stretches of time spent standing outside in the cold and dark.

The bus journey should take one hour, but requires Tess to take two buses which often don't coordinate, which sometimes leaves her waiting for 40 minutes between stops.

And it only takes 15 minutes to drive by car. She now feels she has no choice but to drive Tess to school each day, but is concerned about the impact this will have on the environment and her finances once the Clean Air Zone kicks in. READ MORE: Police appeal over incident in shop 15 minutes before dad, 24, stabbed to death “She [Tess] was exhausted when she was taking the bus,“ mum Amanda told the Manchester Evening News . “She’d get up at 6.30am to get the bus to get to school on time, and there were still occasions where she wasn’t getting to school before 9am.” Under Greater Manchester's current system, most bus services are run by commercial operators, who decide routes, timetables and set fare levels.