With secondary schools opening back up on Thursday 7 January, an additional 180 buses will be made available throughout South Tyrol to guarantee the safe transport of students in light of the current regulations and capacity restrictions to help contain the Coronavirus pandemic.
The mobility department of the South Tyrolean government, the timetable planning teams of the Department of Passenger Transport and the STA have spent the last few weeks making all the necessary preparations to organise school run services in the best possible way. This was done in close cooperation with all our partners and transport operators, the schools and the government commissioner's office, based on a detailed analysis of ticket check-in statistics from autumn 2020. The result: Starting from 7 January, there will be an additional 180 services on several routes to allow pupils and students to safely return to school. The extra vehicles, which will mostly be coaches, will make around 380 additional journeys per day.
These services, which will run in addition to the normal, timetable-based schedules, can be identified by the sign "Corsa scolastica extra/Schülerfahrt extra" and may only be used by pupils and students, i.e. abo+ holders. The online timetable search on this website will mark all services that are reserved for pupils and students. On all extra vehicles without ticket validation machines, passengers must show their abo+ pass to the driver and/or ticket inspector.
Together against Covid – with fines in case of non-compliance
In order to finally contain the spread of Coronavirus and to enable young people to attend school again after many long weeks, we need to make a joint effort that involves every single one of us. Therefore we’d like to urgently appeal to all our passengers – including the young ones:
- If possible, please always use the same buses – and especially the additional ones. This will make it easier to organise the many extra journeys and, if necessary, introduce targeted improvements to the individual routes.
- If you are at all flexible, please avoid peak times: Instead, use off-peak services wherever possible to ensure an even distribution of passengers.
- Please remember that strict safety rules continue to apply on all public transport to provide protection against coronavirus: Always wear a mask that covers your mouth and nose – both during travel and when boarding and alighting. Remember that a minimum distance must be maintained at all times.
- Please also note that stricter controls will be introduced over the coming weeks, and that staff in charge of inspecting tickets on public transport are now also authorised to issue fines if passengers do not comply with the measures to contain the virus.