School Traffic – Is there any hope for improvement?

By Abdullah Uddin (One of our AITPM NSW committee persons)

Background

Too often the public debate about traffic flows and congestion only addresses journey-to-work trips. Yet we all know how much better the conditions are in school holidays.

School trips are often mentioned in an emotional sense but we really must look at the detail of school trips so that we can address effective and safe behaviour patterns.

Paul Froggatt wrote an excellent paper for the 2017 National Conference “Making Active Travel to School as Easy as ABC – The Darwin Safe and Active Routes to School Toolkit” 

Link

I would like to continue this discussion and I would appreciate any comments you may have.

Ticking the boxes when considering a school development project

Throughout my traffic engineering career, I have been involved in many school projects (as a reviewer when I was at various Councils and as an author, when I worked as a consultant). Typically, Traffic Impact Assessments are required for brand new schools or the refurbishment/upgrade of existing schools. Traffic assessment normally covers: traffic and parking assessment, a review of the bicycle and pedestrian access facilities, a construction traffic management plan, and a Green Travel Plan (GTP). There might be one or two more items depending on the situation. 

From my experience, the key factors which need to be considered are:

• many schools are historically located next to major roads, creating traffic conflicts and pedestrian safety issues;
• schools require sufficient on-site parking to minimise dependence on public streets; and
• the need to be demonstrate minimal traffic impacts to the existing road network.

As a consultant, we tick the above boxes and move on to our next project. Generally, a post-DA condition through Council/ SEARs is to prepare a GTP and/ or the appointment of a Travel Plan Coordinator. This requires a combination of technical and social impact skills, including consultation with the schools and parents. During these consultations, schools’ general responses often include:

• parents need to drive due to multi-purpose trips (eg dropping off children on the way to work, shopping on the way home, etc);
• the lack of public transport often doubles the trip duration, and is hence unattractive;
• driving is often cheaper, more convenient and easier where there is free off-street parking;
• schools can’t retain quality staff members without offering off-street parking;
• there are safety issues with walking or cycling, especially during the winter months;
• perceived legal liability issues with encouraging school children to walk or cycle, especially for primary schools; and
• funding is required to appoint a Travel Plan Coordinator.

All the above points are legitimate concerns, and as a consultant we often make qualitive recommendations and prepare wish lists which may or may not ever be followed. The GTP ticks the DA approval condition and subsequently may never be looked at again. There is often no formal accountability for implementation, benchmarking or monitoring of GTP recommendations and outcomes. Although some schools care strongly about GTP implementation they are probably the minority. 

Schools have many other responsibilities to consider apart from transport; including providing better education and contributing to the overall wellbeing of their students and staff. Frequent issues raised include: 

• Do schools have sufficient resources to implement a GTP?
• How do government support them in this task?
• How can parents positively contribute?
• Is there enough motivation for sustainable modes of transport?
• What is happening around the world?

I have done Google research to investigate these issues in other countries, as follows:

NZ

Travelwise is an innovative program for primary, intermediate and secondary schools in Auckland to make school travel safer, healthier and more fun.

Key Facts:

• schools show their commitment to road safety and active transport through their policies, school environment and culture;
• schools provide and reinforce consistent, culturally appropriate road safety and active transport messages to their school community;
• wider school communities are consulted when developing and reviewing road safety and active transport plans, policies and procedures;
• school management actively promotes and supports road safety and active transport;
• school staff demonstrate appropriate road safety behaviours and attitudes;
• schools undertake regular reviews of their nearby traffic environments;
• parents provide information to reinforce road safety and active transport messages and skills;
• collaboration with other school program stakeholders to complement school road safety programs; and
• encouragement of road safety and active transport projects through community events.

Key Achievements:

Since 2005, more than $132m has been spent on NZ schools’ safety infrastructure such as pedestrian and cycling improvements which has resulted in a 58% reduction of crashes around schools that involve pedestrians and cyclists aged 5 to 13.

England

Based on my research, environment/air pollution and children’s health and overall wellbeing are highly significant issues for all schools in England. Notable research has been undertaken by Transition Larkhall and the University of Bath to understand the transport movements of urban schools and community attitudes.

Key Findings:

• about 50% of peak hour traffic relates to school runs;
• public transport is perceived as expensive and a bad experience;
• safety issues for cycling as there aren’t enough cycling lanes;
• cars are more convenient, cheaper, and it is perceived that parents who drive their children care more about them;
• some schools’ poor academic reputations exacerbate Larkhall’s traffic problems; as many local children travel to schools outside Larkhall; and
• more than 50% of private school children are driven to their schools.

Other Research:

• walking to school has fallen from 61% to 50% of primary school students between the periods 1992/4 and 2004. Hence, the risk of children being run over near their schools is now much higher than in the past;
• GPS data shows school term time traffic increases commute times by over 23% in Liverpool and the average speed drop by 7 miles per hour;
• one commuter survey reported on average, an additional 10 minutes travel time on buses during the school term time, compared to school holiday period;
• the primary reasons children are driven to school are the parents’ multi-purpose trip and time saving attitudes;
• introducing car-free zones around schools has proven ineffective as the problem is just moved to the next street; and
• school age children are extremely sensitive to air pollution as their exposure is often greater, and they absorb and keep pollutants in the body longer. Therefore, many funding, interventions and policies are targeted to pollution reduction around schools.

Scotland

Established in 2008, Sustrans ‟Hands Up Scotland Survey (HUSS)” is the largest national dataset that records how students travel to school across Scotland. This is an annual survey undertaken in the second week of September each year.

Key findings:

•  in 2015, 49.7% of students/parents surveyed responded that they normally travel to school in an active way (walking, cycling, using a scooter or skateboard);
• walking was the most frequent mode of travel (43.3%), followed by 32.4% car/park and stride (part journey by car part walking), with the remaining proportion travelling by public and active transport;

In summary, the latest school travel trends indicate that active travel still accounts for the largest proportion of school travel journeys in Scotland but varies significantly between primary and secondary years as well as between state and independent schools. The National Transport Strategy (NTS) sets the long-term vision for transport policy for school students.

What can we do in Australia?

Based on the above findings, it is obvious that schools in NZ, England and Scotland are very strong in promoting actions where the school environment, health and children’s overall wellbeing are taken seriously. In Australia we do not have equivalent databases, nor have any transport strategy design for school travel. How far individual school GTPs can take us is unclear. This is a serious social issue but there are no universal solutions to the associated problems.

To tackle the core problems, more collaborative ideas and approaches are needed. Journeys to school are clearly influenced by wider transport and land use planning policies. School travel is not simply a transport issue; it needs coordinated changes to government urban planning, health, environment and education policies to achieve meaningful changes in the longer term. 

Here are my ideas:

Forming a national transport body, similar to NHVR, who can set some short and long term goals for school travel and work closely with the following government departments and agencies:

1.     Planning – planning departments look after planning and policy matters, as well as social, economic, demographic trends as there is no universal policy that can fit for all. The key question is, can older schools that are located next to the major arterial roads remain at their current locations forever or should we have a long term vision for relocating them? What are the key lessons learnt in the development of new schools in the outskirts of major cities where regular public transport is often non-existent?;

2.     Environment – environment departments must focus on the air quality, noise levels, CO₂ emissions etc next to schools and pass on these results to the health departments. Various graphical maps should be prepared showing by colour warnings, greater pollution levels near any particular school. In this way schools and parents can become more aware of the environment for their students/children and be motivated to do something about it;

3.     Health – health departments will look after children's health and educational development (eg obesity levels), overall physical and mental health and educational development;

4.     Transport – transport department will look after promoting more sustainable travel mode choices and influencing behaviours that control this choice. Travel choice is very complex as it depends on many quantifiable and subjective factors that require very large studies of behaviour patterns to determine;

5.     Local Councils -  Local Council Road Safety Officers can contribute significantly to behavioural change initiatives, as well as contribute to training and recommend infrastructure-based measures. Initiatives and measures that have proven successful could be shared amongst various schools. Road safety awareness campaigns could also be led by senior students of any High School/College. Other sister agencies, eg Pedestrian Council of Australia, national bicycle group/s could also be actively involved. 

These are my suggestions but I am mindful how difficult it is to coordinate any initiatives between multiple agencies. Success will probably depend on identifying independently appointed lead agencies to the policies and actions of sister agencies. Having said that, we can also implement many micro level initiatives that will collectively make big differences.

Benchmarking

The success in implementing initiatives to improve school travel outcomes from an environmental and sustainability perspective will depend on the local context, and making generalised recommendations is not likely to work in all areas. Therefore, as a start, we need to collect more current data for school travel monitoring and benchmarking purposes. Some of the data we can most easily collect is:

• collect traffic data during school holidays to compare with school terms;
• collect traffic data one week prior to the school term/school holiday end points to determine the traffic impact from private schools (as private school terms tend to start or finish one week prior to the public schools);
• identify the schools that have an effective GTP in place and do regular monitoring and benchmarking. Identify their success stories and share these with other schools. I believe there are many good things that are already happening so others may be surprised to learn of the benefits;
• undertaking annual national participation surveys of the school children/parents and staff travel to determine the existing benchmarks for current school travel data; and
• to involve local councils more to share and exchange school travel related data and to collect other related demographic information for benchmarking purposes.

Finally, this needs political will. As a society we need to understand that school journeys are not point to point transport solutions only. School travel also offers opportunities for developing greater social relationships with other children, peer groups and adults. Greater social independence for children also helps with the development of spatial skills and organisational skills including risk assessment, time and money management.

Regular exercise such as walking or cycling to and from school along safe routes also has indisputable positive outcomes for health. A child that is more active is likely to be more active as an adult and as a future parent, their children will also follow the same path. This is a way how society can be helped to grow in a positive direction.

I am sure my fellow traffic professionals can add much more from their work and other life experiences. Please feel free to send your comments directly to me auddin@emmcosulting.com.au or the AITPM website. Let's get the conversation going.

Abdullah Uddin

Associate Traffic Engineer

EMM Consulting