Why isn't the government collecting data on children's active travel to school?

Solve The School Run
Oct 19
4 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

From 2008 to 2011, the government collected data on how every child travelled to school via the school census. This provided insights into the distance children were travelling and how this impacted their active travel. It also provided clear comparatives on how schools and regions were performing, enabling authorities to target and evaluate interventions for improvement. In 2011, this metric was removed, despite its importance. With the government failing to meet its walking to school targets (as recently reported by Living Streets) and the school run generating over 25% of morning peak time traffic from school runs, we're campaigning to reinstate this measurement.

A game-changer for active travel

Nation-wide child-level travel data could be a gamechanger for active travel to schools. By collecting this data through the school census, we could gain insights into travel distances and modes used by children, and compare across schools and regions in England.

You can get a sense of what this could look like by checking out our publicly available London primary school travel dashboard. This type of data availability would mean:

The public would be informed and could hold local authorities accountable for progress.
We could learn from success; children's travel independence is a gift to parents, this data would highlight successful areas and create a race to the top.
Local authorities and national government could use the data to make evidence-based decisions about where to direct resources.
Researchers could conduct high quality systemic evaluations of new policies and solutions such as school streets, low traffic neighbourhoods, cycle lanes and cargo bikes.

Creating "Fear of Missing Out" (FOMO)

National Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman recently said that he wanted to create “fear of missing out” when it comes to school active travel. “If we get to a point where x per cent of kids in an area have the freedom to walk or ride to school, I think we'll see parents in neighbouring streets and communities thinking, ‘hang on, why can’t we have that’,” he said

We agree – parents should absolutely have this information. They should be outraged that their children can’t walk or cycle to school independently, or get an easily available school bus, like they can in so many other developed countries.

Public, accessible and transparent data on how children are getting to school, as we have seen in many other sectors, would enable public awareness of the issues to grow and provide the scrutiny needed to hold authorities to account and drive progress. This could follow the same lines as school league tables, that showcase clear, comparative data on metrics like Ofsted reports and exam results. Parents pour over this information and are even willing to pay for enhanced access.

“Location” and “convenience” regularly rank as some of the most important factors for families choosing a school indicating how important the journey to school is. Imagine if the numbers of children walking and cycling to schools, or the numbers of children travelling independently, could be compared in school league tables in the same way?

Families campaigning outside their local school for a zebra crossing

Including Independent schools

Back in 2008 when the school census did include children's mode of travel data, it did not mandate that independent schools provide this information. We think this was a mistake, since independent school have disproportionately higher levels of driving due to their large catchment areas. We estimate that London independent primary schools make up 10% of pupils but over 20% of primary pupils driven to school. We’re therefore asking for mode of travel data to be re-instates and extended to include independent schools.

What school travel data do we have now?

There are two main data sources. The first is the National Travel Survey, compiled by the Department for Transport using a sample survey of parents. This effectively captures nationwide trends in children's travel to school but lacks the sample size to provide insights at the school, city or regional level, or evaluate the impact of interventions such as car-free school streets.

The second source is school-level data from Transport for London’s Travel for Life and the Modeshift Stars schemes. Schools collect travel information, often through classroom surveys. This data is limited to a certain percentage of schools, resulting in data gaps and potential bias since these schools are likely more engaged with active travel. It also has inconsistent data collection methods and timings,

which makes comparisons difficult.

Campaign asks

We are asking the DfE and the DfT to

1) reinstate the Mode of Travel data collection in the school census. Data collection could be completed ever 2 or 5 years to minimise burden on staff.

2) To extend the collection of Mode of Travel data to independent schools.

What can you do?

You can use our letter templates below to write to your MP and the relevant government departments. (The content is the same but addressed to separate departments).