Martin Smith

Martin lives in a small rural village and attends a full time college course in a near by town.  He was travelling to college and home again four days a week using Education Transport. Martin was referred to the Travel Training scheme by his college course tutor. Martin participated in the Essex Travel Training scheme in 2007 but unfortunately unforeseen problems occurred and Martin’s referral was put on hold whilst the issues were being resolved.

In 2008 Martin’s travel training re-started. His family and tutors at college were very supportive.  We organised a working schedule for Martin on a weekly basis, planning around other commitments and his college education curriculum.

Martin’s journeys to college and home over the four days a week needed careful planning. Two days a week he started college at 10.00 am and two days a week he started at 9.00 am. Three days a week he finished college at 15.00 and one day he finished at 16.00. The bus service that Martin would use for his journeys operated one bus an hour into the main town and the same home again.  This meant that Martin would have a 45 minute wait for a bus home on three days of the week. In order for Martin to be safe and use this time productively he accessed the college student centre library after his course had finished. We set his mobile telephone alarm so it would buzz when Martin needed to pack up and log off the computer and then again to indicate that it was time for Martin to leave the campus. Once again, staff at the college were aware of Martins procedure and very supportive in encouraging him to leave on time to catch the bus.   Two mornings a week he was able to use his concessionary bus pass to access the bus and two mornings he would need to pay his bus fare.       

"Focused and motivated"

In order to minimize complications and reduce margin for error we broke the journeys up into sections and practised each section one at a time until he was confident and able to use the route. Once a section had been achieved, we moved on to the next part of the journey.  Martin worked very hard in his travel training sessions; he was focused and motivated. He was extremely keen to travel independently by bus to college and to use the bus for social purposes.

Martin completed his travel training successfully and now travels independently in to college and home by bus four days a week.    

Once Martin had been travelling on this journey for a few months and was settled in to a routine another referral was made for him. This was to travel train Martin to access the work place centre that he attends one day a week. He started training on the morning journey from home to the work place centre by bus instead of using Education Transport.  Once Martin was confident on this route we introduced the afternoon journey from the work place centre to home. Once again he was enthusiastic and concentrated on his session.

Martin has gone from using Education Transport ten journeys a week to zero. He is now a completely independent traveller.

Martin is thoroughly enjoying travelling independently and has plans to learn to use the bus for his social inclusion.

Back to signs of success