The school run in England is not working for anyone. A huge number of school run car trips pile on top of existing levels of rush hour traffic.. which means our children are making these essential journeys when the highest number of cars are on the roads. This volume of traffic on the roads at this crucial time means all families, however they travel, face unacceptable levels of stress, pollution and road danger.
Inspired by our daily experiences of the school run in Dulwich, South East London, we are on a mission to create safer, cleaner and greener ways to get children to school. But to do that, we need a better understanding of how far pupils are travelling, how this affects their choice of transport; car, public transport, bike or walking, and where driving is highest and why.
Introducing our primary school travel data dashboard..
According to our analysis of the Department for Transport’s National Travel Survey [NTS], the average driving rate for a London primary pupil travelling under 1 mile to school is 7%, that driving rate increases to 65% for distances between 1-2 miles. This shows that distance pupils travel to school is a huge determinant of how they travel. So, we've created a primary school travel model using pupil travel distances and NTS average London driving rates.
The dashboard looks at how far pupils travel to their schools and models how they are most likely to be making those journeys based on London averages. The modelled data can be looked at from a school, ward, borough and cross-London level.
Who is it for?
We built our model to support the parents, schools, campaigners and councillors and councils who want to find safer, cleaner and greener ways for our kids to get to school.
How can it be used?
The data insights can enable you to:
Quantify how many pupils are likely to already be walking/cycling to school and highlight the lack of safe and healthy streets available to them.
Better understand school run dynamics, including which wards / schools have high modelled driving rates.
Get a sense of the distances pupils are being driven, to work out what other sustainable travel solutions may be needed in addition to safe local streets.
Where to find it ..
You can explore your local area on our data dashboard here.
A user guide to support you is here
What did our data model tell us about school run journeys across London? Well there are about 500,000 school run car trips made to and from primary schools a day, more in some boroughs than others. Read about our key findings here on our website and here on Transport Xtra and Air Quality news.
And finally, when you’ve discovered from our data the best place to focus your efforts... our take action toolkit is here, that provides information on sustainable solutions for different length school runs.
Happy data digging!
Please get in touch with any questions, if you’d like help understanding it, and anything else you would like to see.
The Solve the School Run Team