DELIVERING SCHOOL STREETS AND ACTIVE TRAVEL INITIATIVES
If you're a London council officer or a local councillor with an involvement in school streets and active travel, our data can help you in the following ways.
3.0 Reducing school run traffic
2.0 Planning your active travel program
1.0 Justifying your school street or sustainable travel program.
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One of the main justification for school streets is to protect the health and safety of pupils already walking and cycling.
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The dashboard Overview panel provides estimates for the numbers of pupils already travelling sustainably in your borough, in a ward or at an individual school.
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Use these numbers to justify your school street programs internally within the council and in your public comms such as your website and consultation.
EXAMPLES
2.0 Planning for your school street or sustainable travel program
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The Overview panel shows you how far pupils are travelling to their primary school and how they are most likely to be making those journeys.
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This can provide insight on how much modal shift you are likely to get form your school street or active travel project, as pupils who live further away from their are more likely to be driven.
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This context can be helpful for planning a school street including better understanding what existing attitudes from the parents towards a school street might be, the likelihood of any school related traffic displacement onto neighbourhood streets or whether you might need to consider a park and stride.
EXAMPLE
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At Rosendale school, the data shows that 523 pupils (80%) already walk and cycle. ​
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The majority of pupils (500) have travel distances to school of under 1 mile.
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This suggests a school street will be popular with the school community.
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An estimated 123 pupils driven to school with lots of opportunity for modal shift within the 1-2 mile category.
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Cycling opportunities should be delivered in tandem with the school street.
3.0 Reducing traffic caused by the school run
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Does your council have a goal to reduce car trips in the borough?
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Are you a local councillor and your residents are complaining about school run traffic?
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The insights on the Borough and Ward panels can show you which schools and wards are the most likely to be generating school run car trips.
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Once you have understood this, you can use our Take Action pages to work out which initiatives might be best to get started on.
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Where you have state catchment schools, pupils are selected based on their proximity to school and therefore making sure that there are safe walking and cycling routes such as school streets is critical.
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Where you have wider catchment areas, or non-catchment schools such as faith schools or independent schools, there will be more families travelling into that school from outside the local area and travelling longer distances. Therefore enabling family cargo bikes and school bus services will also need to be considered to reduce school run car use.
EXAMPLE
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The ward map on the Ward panel shows the percentage of pupils travelling over 1 mile to their school.
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Since the further pupils are travelling to school, the higher the likelihood they are to be driven, a high percentage of pupils travelling over 1 mile is an indicator of high school run driving rates.
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In this example, the dark blue wards indicated by the arrows are Dulwich wards which have over 50% of primary pupils travelling over 1 mile to school.
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When you select a ward of interest on the filters, you will then see a list of schools in the ward and pupil travel distances.
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You can then use our Take Action page to get started on measures that will enable families to reduce car use at these specific schools.
