Lessons in school travel work

This paper investigates the effectiveness of initiatives currently being introduced as part of school travel work and aims to understand how the delivery of these initiatives can be improved. The term school travel work is used to denote measures that encourage children to walk, cycle or take public transport to school. Although existing research in school travel work has investigated the effectiveness of individual initiatives on reducing car dependency, or evaluated the overall effectiveness of school travel plans, little research has systematically evaluated and compared the effect of a combination of initiatives on modal shift. This paper is based on data collected between December 2005 and August 2006, including the use of questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The paper concludes that walking initiatives and education and training initiatives are considered most effective at reducing car dependency on the school run. Cycling initiatives, traffic management initiatives and improvements to public transport are considered reasonably effective at reducing car dependency. Car sharing initiatives and specialised school bus services appear to be less effective at reducing car dependency on the school run. The effectiveness of initiatives varies between schools on account of the school location, type of school, attitudes of the school and local authority and socio-economic factors. Overall, it is considered that school travel work is reasonably effective at reducing car dependency. Key recommendations are made for schools, school travel advisors and Central Government to improve the effectiveness of school travel work in the future. It is considered that it is not possible to persuade all parents to abandon their cars and adopt more sustainable modes of transport, however, it is considered that school travel work can be effective at encouraging increasing numbers of parents and pupils to adopt more sustainable modes of transport on the school run.