Smart planning for shared home-to-school travel
Introducing Travel Service Optimization, a digital cloud-based platform, designed by Jacobs to help you transform the home-to-school travel experience for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) children and young people.
What's the problem?
Local authorities and transport providers are finding it increasingly hard to manage and pay for the transport of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) pupils.
This is because it is:
Difficult to plan
Child shareability can be unclear and costs can escalate
Difficult to balance
It’s hard to deliver the best possible travel experience for each child, whilst staying within budget
Difficult to implement
Finding the right quantity and quality of operators is complex
How can we help?
Differing from traditional transport planning approaches, we focus on passengers first. TSO clusters SEND children and young people into groups, for more inclusive and efficient travel experiences, rather than focusing on the supply of vehicles.
Using cloud computing to accelerate decision making, TSO can revolutionize your SEND transport planning.
Key Benefits
Identify efficiencies
Realize target annual savings of 10-15%
Save time
Automated system transforms manual process
Enhance relationships
Smart planning manages supplier and parent expectations
TSO further enables you to:
- Increase pupil sharing where appropriate
- Better deliver the right travel experience for each child
- Improve travel strategies – including more effective management of transport contracts and vehicles
- Easily manage pupil changes and increasing demand for transportation
- Release time for planners to focus on people rather than process

Key Features
- Rapid analysis and easier management of passenger data
- Flexible routing preferences, based on shareability, as well as standard parameters such as location and journey length/time
- Compare different scenarios quickly and continually
- Engage proactively with all your stakeholders: parents, carers, schools and operators
Pricing
Get in touch with our team today to find out more about our simple pricing structure.
Based on the number of SEND passengers, our service is built around your needs.
Find Out MoreTSO has been designed through close collaboration with local authorities in England to ensure it addresses and delivers for both the challenges faced and opportunities available, and is now available for any local authority in the UK.
How we're working with Kent County Council (KCC)
Following delivery of a range of successful test projects on home to school transport in Kent, Kent County Council (KCC) have awarded Jacobs our first full-scale Travel Service Optimization (TSO) contract, known as TSO Optimize.
This will be delivered under the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) G-Cloud 12 Framework Agreement, and applied initially to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) children and young people. It is designed to enable KCC to address the cost pressures on SEND transport while supporting relationships with parents and carers.
Connect with us today to start the transformation of your SEND transport, discover how our tailored pricing model works for you or book in for a free demo!
Find out more