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Review of Research on School Travel

CHAPTER TWO Factors Affecting School Travel

2.1 Both transport and non-transport factors affect school travel behaviour. This section discusses the impacts of non-transport factors such as: employment, social, educational, environmental and health issues before looking at specific transport issues such as: safety, cost, time, attitudes, and management.

Trends in school travel

2.2 In the past 10 years in the UK the proportion of school journeys made by car has nearly doubled, from 16% to 29%, so that now one in five cars on urban roads at 8:50 during term time is taking children to school. (SDG 2001). Reliable statistics at a Scottish level have been enhanced in recent years and, although more data are required to demonstrate travel trends, the percentage of car travel to school has risen from 14% in 1997 to 20% in 2000. This suggests that the UK and Scottish trends are similar, even though the absolute levels in Scotland are lower (SE 2001). The National Travel Survey also shows that there has not only been a change in mode choice to school but also journey length, with increases throughout the UK of 18% for children aged 5-10 and 35% for children aged 11 to 16. Mean distances travelled for each mode have remained fairly constant but modal shares have changed radically with a shift towards modes associated with longer distances.

2.3 Cause and effect for these observed changes are not clear. Greater car use may be associated with a need to travel further, or the ability to travel by car may be allowing longer trips. In practice the change is likely to be a combination of both factors. Although the literature does not allow the quantification of the various factors responsible for these trends, it does permit a systematic examination of the likely causal factors.

2.4 Some of the main non-transport factors affecting school travel behaviour are summarised in Table 1 (Cross 1998, Bradshaw 2000, SDG 2001).

Table 1 - Non-transport factors affecting school travel trends

Employment, household and car ownership factors

2.5 The percentage of households in Scotland with regular use of a car increased from 56% in 1989 to 66% in 1999 (SE 2001). During this period the number of single car households remained fairly static but the number of households with two or more cars increased from 14% to 23%. In the major Scottish cities car ownership levels were lower, with just over half of households having a car. Only a third of households with income levels up to 10,000 had a car.

2.6 Bradshaw (1995, 2000) identified that the changes in travel to school patterns of children shadowed the travel to work patterns of parents. Particularly where a second parent enters employment in a multi-car owning household, parents were likely to drop off their children at school on the way to work. The research found that:

• Fewer parents collected their children in the afternoon than dropped them off in the morning.
• Over 60% of parents driving secondary school children to school continued on to another location including work, shopping, or visiting.
• If parents changed their own travel patterns and travelled to work by public transport then they did not expect to drive their children to school before leaving for work.
• Parents drove their children to school so that they could have quality social time to talk to their children.

Social and community factors

2.7 Travel to school is an important part of childrens' social experience and solutions are only perceived as successful if they increase a child's sense of belonging. A DTLR survey showed that meeting and talking to friends was by far the most important positive factor in walking to school and that not meeting classmates was the fourth most important reason for not liking car travel to school (DTLR 2000).

2.8 A shared sense of responsibility was a key element in tackling Denmark's very poor child casualty problem and giving it one of the best records in Europe (Odense 1989). A much stricter legislative regime was introduced for both pedestrians and vehicle drivers helping to emphasise that safe travel depended on changed behaviour by all road users.

2.9 Community ownership is therefore needed for successful solutions (Bradshaw 2000) and is seen in a variety of ways:

• The clearly defined codes and regulation associated with school buses in the United States have engendered some sense of community ownership of school buses (NSTA 2001). Increased status for bus travel in the community is also helped by: requiring other drivers to recognise the special nature of school buses and give them greater priority; enforcing strict school bus vehicle standards; and ensuring that children follow a code of practice for using the buses.
• Social interaction whilst travelling to school differs significantly between modes. Car travel provides the least opportunities for social interaction but many parents appreciate the quality time with their children when travelling together, either from giving lifts to school or when accompanying walking trips (EPPI 2001).
• Bus drivers can also provide positive social experiences for children (Edwards and Johnston 1977) but bus travel can be a threatening experience for many. The attitude of transport staff is described as one of the main reasons for children to feel alienated and poorly served by public transport. Satisfaction with bus drivers declines as children get older, with only 10% of 15 and 16 year olds describing staff as "usually helpful". (Crime Concern 1999)
• Children will choose longer, slower or more expensive modes to allow them to travel to school with friends (King 1973).
• Car pools where parents take turns to provide lifts offer rich social experiences (Adler 1984).

2.10 There are other practical issues associated with community ownership of schemes. Good consultation appears to be a key factor in governing acceptance and effectiveness of solutions. Objective measurements of the impacts of schemes confirm residents' perceptions, demonstrating the importance of involving local people in planning and monitoring schemes (Ross Silcock 1999).

Educational factors

2.11 Although parental choice of school has been suggested as a factor likely to lead to increasing distance to school (SDG 2001) there has been limited research on the actual impacts. Such work as has been carried out has been inconclusive. Stead (1998) did not find any significant increase in the length of education journeys in their small sample of children, and Bowe (1994) noted that choice is very complex involving such a large range of factors that only a very large study could provide reliable findings. Therefore, whilst it seems inevitable that current trends within education, increasing specialisation and allowing more parental choice, will lead to longer trips which are more likely to be made by car, research evidence for this is weak.

Health and environmental factors

2.12 Children are often aware of health promotion messages that walking and cycling are healthy but feel that they are unable to act on these messages in everyday life (Mackett 2001). Other constraints such as perceived traffic danger, personal security, and restrictions placed on children by adults often prove to be more important. (Davis 1996).

2.13 Focus group results have suggested that poor weather influences travel decisions (EPPI 2001). Concern about being wet and cold and the impacts that this may have on performance in the classroom may influence children to avoid walking or cycling or waiting for buses.

2.14 Exposure to traffic noise reduces the mental efficiency of children. (Simenova G 1980).

Effects of wider transport factors

2.15 There has been a general increase in the mobility of the population from increasing car ownership and decreases in the cost of car travel, but this has resulted in a decrease in the availability of bus services and increasing bus fares (Cross 1998). Although this has improved access to school for some people, growing congestion and pollution around schools in Scotland is now perceived as a growing problem by school staff, parents and children (Halden 1999).

2.16 Yet frustration with these problems has not yet led to widespread action to change travel behaviour. Although Councils have been able to increase budgets for some aspects of school travel, such as Safer Routes to School, overall spending on school transport is falling and initiatives are still fragmentary (Spokes 2001).

2.17 Although children of school age are generally open minded about transport (Pilling 1998), their attitudes towards bus travel are much less flexible than for other modes, with over half of surveyed young people having strong positive or strong negative perceptions of the mode. Research (Cross 1998) on the impact of travel awareness initiatives showed that it was easier to change attitudes to rail, tram, walking and cycling than it was to change attitudes to bus use, with attitudes remaining largely unchanged and quite negative. Children from higher socio-economic groups rate environmental factors, safety and comfort higher, and children from lower socio-economic backgrounds rate cost, convenience and image higher.

2.18 Given these negative perceptions of bus travel, and the reality that most motorised trips to school will be made by either car or bus, UK STAG undertook detailed research on the factors affecting bus use in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Atkins 2000). This found that:

• Children who always travel to school by car tend to have negative perceptions of non-car modes but once they try bus travel they are more likely to have positive attitudes towards buses. The factors children value most about bus travel relative to car travel are the opportunity to interact with friends and greater independence.
• There are inaccurate perceptions of car and bus travel partly resulting from people sub-consciously seeking to validate their current behaviour and partly due to lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge is particularly apparent for health impacts, bus routes, and bus timetables.
• Buses are (often correctly) perceived to be of poor quality, dirty, and in a poor state of repair particularly amongst older children. Waiting for the bus and walking to bus stops are considered to be major deterrents particularly where lighting is poor, or when personal security is an issue, and when no bus shelter is provided.
• Parents feel that it is cheaper to drive children to school than pay bus fares, particularly if they have two or more children or are able to drop their children off on their way to work.
• Buses are perceived to be unreliable and pupils are fearful of being late and being punished, but they are also unwilling to allow more time to catch an earlier bus.
• Declining local authority budgets for school transport have resulted in discretionary school transport provision being cut. The research notes that the current statutory distances of two miles for children under eight and three miles for older children are unrealistic since few children are prepared to walk more than about a mile to school. In surveys of local authorities and users in England, Wales and Northern Ireland as part of the study, some respondents stated that many people switched to car travel when free bus travel was cut.

2.19 Competitive markets for buses are resulting in quality improvements for some commercial services but, in many cases, older and poorer quality vehicles have been retained by bus companies, partly for the dedicated school transport services. There is also a shortage of bus drivers in some areas, forcing companies to rely on staff who display a lack of professionalism. These factors lower children's respect for drivers and fuel parents concerns about safety and security (Crime Concern 1999). Increasingly school buses are being registered, allowing operators to supplement the guaranteed income based on minimum seat provision for pupils with income from fare paying passengers. However, some parents are concerned about the risk of allowing adults on to buses which are predominantly used by children. (Atkins 2000).

2.20 Negative attitudes to car travel and positive attitudes to walking and cycling were demonstrated in a survey of children aged 7 to 11 (DTLR 2000). This showed that 38% of children who were driven to school would rather walk or cycle. The main negative factors associated with car travel (congestion, pollution, lack of exercise and lack of social contact) and the positive factors associated with walking (socialising with friends and escorts, exercise, shopping en route, and fresh air) need to be balanced with the positive factors associated with car travel (quicker/ more convenient, en route to work, no choice, weather, safer) (Mackett 2001). There therefore appears to be wide public understanding of the key transport policy issues, and the challenge is to make walking, cycling and public transport relatively more attractive than they are now when compared with car travel.

Real and perceived safety and risk factors

2.21 Available statistics do not lend themselves to an analysis of the relative risk of modes of travel, since bus and some car trips still require children to cross roads on foot (Bradshaw 2000). If risk is to be minimised then safer routes to school approaches need to be adopted to allow a systematic analysis of risk factors for each child's journey.

2.22 Parents are concerned about their childrens' safety walking to and from bus stops and on-board buses (Atkins 2000). However, when ranking risk on the school journey, Lee (1994) showed that there was no relationship between experience of risk by children, perception of risk by children and worries about risk by parents. The only common high risk factor across these three measures of risk was found to be bullying.

2.23 Some parents were aware that the risk of a road accident was greater than personal safety factors but even some of these parents were still more concerned about stranger danger issues (Bradshaw 2000). Scottish parents in this survey were concerned about both factors, so obstacles to walking and cycling could only be tackled by overcoming concerns about both stranger danger and road safety obstacles.

2.24 Perceived negative perceptions of safe behaviour by children can encourage unsafe behaviour. Children fear derision if they wear cycle helmets yet respect those who do wear helmets and willingness to wear a helmet does not appear to be related to experience of injury (Ressler 1997). Helmet wearers are considered to be smart and safety conscious so those children who perceive "smart" and "safety conscious" as being positive attributes wear helmets themselves.

2.25 Children who walk to school demonstrate awareness and understanding of road danger earlier than children less experienced with traffic (Lewis 1998). However there is a high variation in levels of skill related to personality and experience. Generalised conclusions about safe ages for unsupervised exposure are therefore problematical (Whitbread D 1998).

Cost, time and efficiency for management of school transport

2.26 Expenditure on school transport in the UK exceeds 500 million per year but budgets are falling (Atkins 2000). This is creating pressures within local authorities to find efficiency savings in their budgets by:

• Co-ordinating the procurement of education services with public bus services and social work services to maximise the benefits of bulk purchasing and reduce administration for the authority and the bus company.
• Staggering school session times to allow multiple journeys by buses in the school bus fleet. A share of the savings needs to be made available to the school to overcome school and parent resistance to such approaches.
• Reducing the number of children who are offered free bus travel and reducing the subsidy on supported journeys.

2.27 Special needs transport accounts for approximately 60% of the school travel budget in England, Northern Ireland and Wales (DTLR 2001), yet the definition of special needs and the approach to budgeting and management makes comparisons for the purposes of Best Value monitoring impractical. Evaluation of individual travel needs offers a planned approach to managing this budget.

2.28 Increasingly, authorities in England are moving away from an automatic presumption of free transport for children with special needs, and factors such as the ability of parents to accompany children to school, and distance from the school, are being considered. Integrated planning and procurement of transport, for children with special needs and mainstream school transport, is achieved in just over half the authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but only about 16% of authorities in these areas achieve any degree of integration with tendered public bus services (DTLR 2001).

The need to carry equipment

2.29 Armitage (1998) found that the lack of secure lockers at schools contributed to children being forced to carry more. However, he does not present evidence that the need to carry more deters children from walking, cycling or bus travel in practice.

2.30 Focus groups have suggested that children are reluctant to arrive at school "all sweaty". Clearly there are limits to the exertion which is appropriate on the school journey, so travel decisions will be affected both by the walking or cycling distance and the equipment needs (EPPI 2001).

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