Lamphun Provincial Administration is praised for launching a student shuttle project that helps reduce parental expenses, increase opportunities, and lower the risk of children dropping out of school, emphasizing that education should not be costly.
On 5 Feb 2026 GMT+7, it was reported that a fan pageof Lamphun Provincial Administrationshared details about the student shuttle project at Lamphun Provincial Administration schools, which received widespread acclaim online.
The post stated, “Education should not be expensive: Lessons from a student shuttle project guided by data.”
Imagine a family in Lamphun where the parents work in agriculture with modest annual income, but every morning they face the same dilemma: “How will my child get to school today?” This question is not just about transportation, but also about “the daily expenses that must be paid.”
Many students come from agricultural labor households earning less than 36,000 baht per year, yet they bear travel costs averaging about 20% of their income. Such expenses are “hidden costs” that are rarely discussed but have the greatest impact because they are recurring daily and monthly, gradually affecting the whole family’s quality of life.
In some cases, these burdens may cause children to face the unfortunate risk of dropping out of the education system.
Lamphun Provincial Administration started with a simple but crucial question: “If we want to help children study, where can we reduce family living costs?”
One answer is “transportation.” Instead of using a broad or conventional approach, the Lamphun student shuttle project began by analyzing individual student data to design the most efficient and safest bus routes.
The data helps to accurately identify where the children live, how they are distributed, which routes should be main, where pickup points should be, and how to maximize resource efficiency.
The result is not just “buses running on fixed routes,” but increased opportunities for children to truly access services, with safety being equally important to cost savings. The shuttle system reduces the risks of students traveling alone and lessens parental worries about both expenses and safety every school day.
Lamphun Provincial Administration believes good public policy should meet citizens’ daily needs and that
“using real data for decision-making” is a key tool to achieve tangible educational equity. Ultimately, education should not be limited to those who can “afford it” but should be an opportunity that all children in Lamphun can “access” without families having to choose between quality education and overwhelming financial burdens.
Later, many people shared and commented on the project, mostly praising it for being beneficial, reducing family expenses, lowering pollution, decreasing road congestion, and providing safe transport.