INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO INFLUENCING TRAVEL BEHAVIOUR AT SCHOOLS

The need to reduce the growth of car driver only trips has been identified in transport strategies for Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. One of the tools available to address this growth is travel demand management which involves working with communities to encourage many people to make small changes to the way they travel, which overall can have an enormous effect. This paper focuses on one type of community, the school community, where trips are often short and are able to be replaced by a sustainable alternative to the car. Over the past 10 years the growth in car trips to schools has been most noticeable. This has led to traffic congestion and safety issues that more and more schools and local government authorities are having to grapple with. Parents often drive their kids to school because of the perceived threat to their safety. The irony is that the danger from traffic increases as more children are driven to school. This paper looks at current trends towards parents driving their children to school, some of the contributing factors, and reports on two school based approaches being developed in Australia. The first is a TravelSmart curriculum-based approach developed in Perth to influence travel behaviour in partnership with local government. The second is a national program being developed by Smogbusters called Smogbusters Way to School. It also demonstrates that solutions can sometimes come from unexpected sources. One often under-estimated source is our children. With their enthusiasm and interest in the environment they are willing to not only change their own travel behaviour and set an example for adults, but have an important influence on the travel behaviour of their parents. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD E200461.