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Review of Research on School Travel

CHAPTER THREE Impacts of School Travel

General impacts

3.1 In addition to school travel decisions being affected by a range of factors as has been described above, the travel behaviour in turn affects children's physical health, mental health, and cognitive and social development. A review (EPPI 2001) of the impacts on mental health and cognitive and social development was undertaken for DTLR and identified many impacts of school travel including on:

• Cognition
• Different travel to school experiences led to the development of different skills.
• Physical activity could have some positive effects on mental performance and self esteem in some situations.
• Noise and pollution can have negative effects on childrens' learning abilities.
• Social behaviour and relationships
• Difficult or long journeys could result in stress and problem behaviour.
• Exercise has some positive effects on behaviour.
• Each mode supports the development of particular social relationships.
• Society
• Non car travel allowed more freedom of movement of children.
• Concern that school bus travel could potentially reinforce segregation within society with bussing from different housing areas transferring any social divisions from the residential areas to the school gate.

Impacts on children's cognitive development

3.2 Despite the journey to school comprising a universal experience for those attending school there is surprisingly little evidence of the contribution which the school journey experience makes to children's development (EPPI 2001). However, based on available research some conclusions can be made:

• Exercise can improve the cognitive performance of children if taken mid-morning or early afternoon (McNaughten 1993), but there is no reliable evidence that walking or cycling at the start of the day as part of a journey to school has a similar effect (Craft 1983). Research is needed in this area to allow more conclusive findings but there is no evidence that exercise in itself can have negative effects.
• Younger children who are wholly or partly responsible for directing their route to school by walking, perform better at tasks in the classroom that require spatial skills. (Foreman 1990).
• Long journeys to school have a negative effect on children's educational performance. Long travel times in an uncomfortable bus or an inability to participate in extra curricular activities reduce academic achievement (EPPI 2001).
• Focus groups suggested that children had improved their organisational skills including time and money management as a result of their independent travel to school (EPPI 2001).

Impacts on children's social development

3.3 The strong relationship between social factors and school travel has been highlighted above in sections 2.6 to 2.9. School travel decisions have been shown to affect social development as follows:

• Adler (1994) found many positive influences on children's social development as a result of car pooling. This research found that the car pool environment was influenced by school, family, and peer group pressures. Children in the car pools displayed friendship and co-operation across normal boundaries of age and sex and parent drivers interacted with children in a variety of ways, widening social experiences of participants in the car pool. Children also derived status from the use of their family's car. Participants in any car pool often shared similar social values and norms and when these values were threatened the car pool often dissolved.
• In contrast it was suggested that the school bus could have negative influences on self image for children from low income groups (Reid 1994). Factors which reduced children's sense of belonging to a community were shown to be associated with poor academic achievement.
• Participation in non-school social activities was found (O'Brien 1982) to be lower for those with longer travel to school journey times but is still a minor factor compared with perceived abilities and self image. Participation in school based activities was not found to be greatly affected by travel time.
• Exercise was shown by Basile (1995) to be a positive influence in reducing the disruptive influence of children.
• There are strong relationships between children's friends at school and travel to school decisions. This is partly explained by friends outwith school also being friends within school, with many children drawing friends from those who live nearby. However, frequency of contact with friends is important in developing and sustaining friendship and time travelling to school is seen as a key element within this. (King 1973)
• The approach to management and efficient use of school buses in North America introduces a much wider social function for schools. High school cafeterias provide a waiting and social area allowing buses to make several runs at opening and closing time. However this introduces additional supervisory costs to schools (NSTA 2001).

3.4 There was no conclusive evidence on whether mode shift on the school journey was resulting in general social change. Some have identified possible negative consequences of mass car travel (Hillman 1993) and focus groups have suggested a range of possible positive and negative impacts from mass use of particular modes on the atmosphere at the school and the local sense of community (EPPI 2001). This suggests that school travel changes are one of many factors reflecting more general changes in society.

Impacts on children's physical health

3.5 There is an extensive literature on the health benefits of regular exercise (e.g. HEA 1996). Walking and cycling to school can provide this regular exercise and so can offer significant health benefits. A major survey of the health of children in Scotland (SE 1997) showed that low levels of physical activity in children was a cause for concern, falling well below the levels regarded as beneficial to good health. The sharp rise in obesity in children also signals growing health problems for the future, with increasing physical activity amongst children becoming a policy priority (SE 1999).

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