Learning to travel on your own is a big step towards having more independence and choice in your life. Independent Travel Training is designed to support young people with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) to build the skills and confidence to use public transport safely, whether you’re going to school, college, or out in your community. With the right support, you can learn how to plan journeys, travel independently, and feel more confident exploring new opportunities—this page will show you what help is available and how to get started.
Independent travel training
Bi-borough (Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster)
The Biborough SEN Team run Independent Travel Training for young people with SEND in Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. It is a 1:1 personalised training programme, designed to enable young people with SEND to develop the skills to safely travel independently to their school or college.
The training is delivered by an Independent Travel Trainer, who works directly with the young person, teaching them about road safety, personal safety and awareness and journey planning.
This guide has more information on how independent travel training works and how you can apply.
In addition to providing guidance on Home to School Travel Assistance, this guide also contains lots of helpful information on alternative accessible travel options and schemes that can support you to use trains, buses, taxis and other modes of transport. Further details on accessible travel options can also be found here.
If you are a young person or a parent of a young person with special educational needs and/or disabilities and would like to apply for Independent Travel Training, you can email the Travel Training team on traveltraining@rbkc.gov.uk.
The Independent Travel Training team have created the short information video below narrated by a young resident to explain the process of travel training, through the trainee’s perspective.
Hammersmith and Fulham
Hammersmith and Fulham also run Independent travel training for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) The service provides one-to-one travel training to help you build confidence and skills—like planning journeys, staying safe, and using transport—so you can travel independently to places like school, college, or work.
Transport for London
Transport for London run a Travel Mentoring Service which offers free support to help people with disabilities or mobility needs gain confidence using London’s public transport by giving journey planning advice, providing a mentor to accompany you on practice trips, and assisting you virtually via an app.
This TfL video below tells you a little more about the travel mentoring service.
