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Home > Community Solutions & Crime Prevention > Wyong
Vehicle Brokerage Scheme
Young people on the Central Coast, particularly those in remote locations, now have a better chance of accessing the services that are provided to help maximise their potential as young adults.
This has occurred thanks to a project with a primary objective of piloting a vehicle brokerage scheme. Both recent and current users of this transport brokerage service have been able to get to new jobs, TAFE, TVET, and other training courses for those at risk.
The brokerage scheme is designed to provide both information and transportation assistance to youth living in isolated areas, or where existing services are problematic or not affordable.
A young person or youth advocate can contact the brokerage – known as the ‘4C's’ – and request timetables or concession information for the nearest service that will get them to the required destination. For 25% of enquiries, this solves the problem. However, when existing transport services do not meet the required need, the brokerage coordinator will source a volunteer willing to assist.
Depending upon requirements, the volunteer may assist with one segment of the journey e.g. a lift to a rail station or bus interchange or even the full journey where necessary. This assistance might be required only once or it might be ongoing until the training is completed or the young person or advocate puts other arrangements in place.
In addition to this individualised assistance, the 4C’s Transport Brokerage has encouraged local community organisations to place their minibuses in the scheme. Those organisations provide the brokerage with ‘availability schedules’. The Coordinator can then match the transportation needs of a small group with an available vehicle and volunteer driver.
The brokerage reimburses the costs of both drivers and the bus lending community organisations on a kilometre basis and where possible the users contribute towards those costs. In all cases the assistance represents an affordable, viable and flexible option where none may have previously existed.
The brokerage service is underpinned by community-based partnerships providing both funding and in-kind support. The project, which launched in September 2003, will soon review its progress to date and consider options for expanding its service to other Central Coast areas and target groups for the remainder of its funded term – May 2005.
A key objective is the achievement of financial support beyond the expiration of ‘Community Solutions’ funding. To this end the brokerage service is collecting data on service provision as well as evidence of community support. As at the end of February the brokerage had provided in excess of 100 vehicle journeys that totalled almost 300 individual passenger trips. A further consideration for the project may be the opportunities and threats arising from the recent reviews of NSW transport systems.
For further information
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