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SCOTTISH SCHOOL TRAVEL ADVISORY GROUP REPORT
SECTION B RECOMMENDATIONS
Planning and Resourcing
1. School travel issues should be addressed by all agencies with a responsibility for young people, and initiatives developed for inclusion in Local Health Plans, Local Transport Strategies and Children's Service Plans etc. Different Departments, within both the Scottish Executive and the local authorities should work together to develop and fund effective school travel measures and initiatives.
2. Local transport strategies should include school travel and show how the authority's school travel policies relate to its walking and cycling strategies. Local transport strategies must take into account special needs transport. School travel plans should form an integral part of local transport strategies by illustrating how strategies are put into practice at local level. Those authorities who have not already done so should set targets for modal shift on the school journey as an addendum to their current transport strategies. Local authorities should take account of all of the above factors when considering their obligations under the Road Traffic Reduction Act 1997.
i. School travel represents a significant element in peak travel with corresponding impacts on congestion and pollution. Local transport planning must take account of this. Habits learned in youth are carried into adulthood with corresponding long-term impacts. Parents' decisions about school travel may also impact on their decisions about their own travel mode i.e. I have to take the children therefore I might as well use the car for my own purposes.
3. Scottish Executive planning guidance to local authorities as both planning authorities and infrastructure developers should take account of school travel when planning new educational or residential developments. Such consideration is equally important where the provision of new facilities is by Public Private Partnership.
i. School Planning - School travel should also be a factor in the development of PPP projects and provision by private schools. There have been examples of good practice in England where development of a school has only been permitted subject to the introduction of public transport/walking/cycling biased school travel plans.
4. Future Scottish Executive guidance to local authorities on their use of PTF/CWSS resources should specifically highlight the need for local authorities to consider school travel issues. It should ask local authorities to ensure that the school travel plans developed by the schools in its area and its own CWSS spending plans complement each other. The need for different departments e.g. transport, health promotion and education to work together to develop and fund effective school travel measures and initiatives should again be emphasised.
i. Funding for provision of facilities should be seen to be given as part of an overall school transport plan, in order to ensure that new facilities e.g. cycle parking are not going to increase accident rates.
Roles and Responsibilities
5. All schools should establish a School Travel Team. Where a school already has a School Safety Team as proposed in the Guidance on How to Run a Safer Routes to Schools scheme the safety team's role should be expanded to cover all school transport issues. The teams should be school based and each school team must produce a school travel plan.
i. Local authorities and schools must work together to establish these teams.
6. Adequate staff training and teaching resources must be developed to support the work of the school travel teams.
7. A new role of school travel co-ordinator should be set up within each local authority. There will be three main strands to his or her role:
- the evangelical role to promote best practice within schools and with school travel teams;
- the practical role, working across local authority departments to provide facilities, advise on CWSS spending etc.
- the co-ordinating role to co-ordinate the work of the travel teams within any cluster of schools and identifying and developing any opportunities for the travel teams to work within existing local initiatives, thereby working with others towards common goals.
- in the short term the role of the Active Schools co-ordinator as being piloted by SportScotland could be expanded to include that of the school travel co-ordinator. This may provide the opportunity in some areas to maximise use of available expertise and resources.
i. Circumstances vary so much across the country it is important that the principle of a school travel team is established while the procedures for setting it up and its exact composition will vary with local circumstances and priorities.
ii. Clearly there are major differences between circumstances at primary and secondary schools. Generally, journeys are much shorter, numbers attending the school are much smaller and behaviour problems considerably rarer at primary than at secondary schools.
Also rural and urban schools present a very different set of challenges, at both primary and secondary level. The structure and focus of teams must reflect such variables
iii. A cluster of schools, whose teams must co-ordinate activities, is most likely to be a secondary and its feeder primaries but this is not necessarily the case. Children moving between secondaries for different subjects will create a link between the schools involved.
iv. Teams may consist of a designated travel officer; a nominated teacher or teachers who would be responsible for curriculum issues arising from school travel; perhaps also a guidance teacher to deal with health, environment and community issues; the head teacher, and transport operator(s), indeed any individual whose membership local needs determine to be appropriate. It may be that the team consists of a core membership with individuals co-opted as and when specific expertise is required. For example, it may be appropriate for the attendance officer to be called to be present at some meetings (it is perceived that a large number of attendance problems are related to the journey to or from school). The team must liase closely with those responsible for road safety and cycle training and with local Road Safety Officers.
v. The role of the school travel team will be two fold and must include strategic responsibility to pro-actively encourage healthy and environmentally friendly travel choices and operational responsibility to co-ordinate boarding of buses where this is within the school grounds, ensure proper use of cycle storage etc. These two roles are quite separate and distinct but clearly related. It is therefore seen as beneficial that although different individuals rightly have responsibility for these very different roles these individuals must work together on one team to maximise effectiveness. The team must have clearly defined objectives form the outset (i.e. must not spend a disproportionate amount of time fielding questions about safety and ignoring the " evangelical" role. The existence of the school travel plan will help keep this focus.
vi. The team will wish to designate someone as its leader who may or may not be the head teacher . However, it is vital that operational responsibilities within any school remain with very senior school staff who take responsibility for legal and safety issues, who have the respect of the pupils and can take appropriate, timeous, and effective action to curb inappropriate behaviour.
vii. The team should have an understanding of where legal responsibilities lie and an understanding of potential liability and insurance matters associated with school travel initiatives
viii. The team should work towards achieving the full range of benefits to be had from walking, cycling or taking public transport to school and should motivate pupils and parents to make choices in order to achieve benefits on a range of fronts - environment, health, and social development. This is where the imaginative composition of the team and the streamlining of initiatives can maximise results.
8. A code of practice should be drawn up which defines the responsibilities of all those involved in school travel including transport operators, local authorities, parents, school travel teams etc.
i. Clarification of responsibilities is required to cover all aspects of school travel, including behaviour on buses.
ii. Clarification is particularly required on the issue of responsibility for proper boarding of buses on school premises and also the boarding of buses outwith school grounds.
School Travel Plans - the Vehicle for Change
9. All schools should prepare a school travel plan. This should be the responsibility of the school travel team. It should contain short and long term targets to achieve modal shift on the school run and should be subject to constant review.
i. School travel plans should have short and long-term targets (e.g. over 10 years) so that plans continue to have validity and the commitment of the school even if individual staff involved move on. They should also outline the specific measures that will be put in place to achieve these targets and when they will be put in place.
ii. Plans should be kept under constant review to respond to changing circumstances and there should be a built in review cycle to ensure plans are up-dated.
iii. Plans should address all issues that are affected by choice of travel mode and likewise all factors that affect mode choice at that particular school. These issues include safety, SRTS, the environment, health, level of provision of cycling and walking facilities, the management of car parking at the school, the adequacy of bus drop off points if required etc
iv. Development of the plan must include consultation or formal partnership with all interested parties and in particular parents. It is parents who, particularly in the case of younger children, make the final decision on travel modes. No plan will be successful without their support.
v. The Scottish Executive should produce Guidance on developing school travel plans to complement its " How to Run a Safer Routes to School" Guidance. This will include advice on how to explore funding opportunities and must also include comment on behaviour on buses.
vi. The School Travel Plan provides an important learning opportunity in the school, affording the opportunity for practical learning over a range of subjects and should be threaded throughout the curriculum.
School Travel - part of the curriculum
10. School travel issues are already part of the curriculum but they should be integrated further as opportunities arise. HMIE should undertake a review to identify exemplary school travel plans and other examples of good practice in achieving or encouraging healthy and environmentally friendly travel choices.
i. Safe school travel issues are already part of the curriculum, in the Health Education 5-14 National Guidelines. However, resources need to be developed to link directly with these guidelines.
ii. The Scottish Road Safety Campaign commissioned research into Road Safety Education (RSE) in Scottish schools in 1999. The most important recommendation of this research was that there should be a 'core curriculum' of RSE in all Scottish schools, from pre-school to upper secondary, including special schools. The report also recommended that RSE should be taught in Personal and Social Development (PSD). Other subjects, such as Environmental Studies and Citizenship, would be encouraged to teach road safety, if they wanted to, but this would be in addition to PSD.
iii. Issues concerning safe school travel have been incorporated into the Health Education 5-14 National Guidelines. Health Education, and therefore road safety, is to be taught in PSD, in accordance with the research recommendation
iv. An Education Officer at the Scottish Road Safety Campaign has been employed to oversee the implementation of a 'core curriculum' of RSE in all Scottish schools, ensuring that RSE links directly to the Health Education Guidelines.
v. There should be collaboration between Development Officers at 'Learning and Teaching Scotland', local authority Education Advisers, Teachers and the SRSC Education Officer to develop effective and appropriate resources for RSE, to be taught principally in PSD.
vi. Similar action should be taken when the opportunity arises to include study of the relative merits of different travel choices and their impact on the environment in Environmental Studies (e.g. Social subjects - people and place), and to include the effects of travel choices on social issues and ideas of responsibility in making travel choices in Citizenship.
vii. It is envisaged that exemplary examples of school travel plans and good practice of RSE be highlighted in an HMIE report on travel issues. This would be a powerful way of identifying and sharing good ideas.
viii. A presentation should be made at some appropriate opportunity to head teachers to encourage this integration
Promotion of change
11 . A higher profile must be given to school travel issues and to the effects on health and the environment of different modal choices
i. Opportunities must be found at a high level e.g. headteachers' conference to give publicity to SSTAG recommendations and measures must be taken to re-enforce positive messages to people working in both the education and transport sectors.
ii. The Scottish Executive should consider how to include in their long term 'Learn to Let Go' Travel Awareness Campaign messages on the effects of different school travel choices
12. There needs to be increased and sustained promotion of school travel issues in schools and this should be directed towards pupils, staff and parents.
i. The school travel team must liase with the School Board and the PTA who both have a part to play in influencing school travel issues.
ii. School Boards and PTAs should be asked in co-operation with the travel team to take on board the tasks of;
- making parents aware of travel options at their particular school and the implications of each option,
- exerting an influence on the problem of parking outside schools and other specific local problems identified,
- encouraging a supportive climate for school travel plans.
iii. School travel awareness promotion should be tailored to individual schools so that it is realistic and meaningful and takes into account the local community needs and priorities and current family lifestyles.
iv. The issue of parking outside schools must be a priority in school travel awareness promotion. The reasons for any school's parking policy must be explained to parents and all other interested parties as should any measures a school adopts e.g. a 'park and walk' scheme or a designated parking area near to the school and a walkway between the locations.
v. Promotional work needs to be constant and cyclical to keep up the momentum and ensure change is permanent.
13. Information about the availability of public transport should be made available at all schools to staff and regular visitors to the school (parents, delivery drivers etc) and they and their needs should be included in the process of developing school travel plans.
i. Travel to the school by staff, parents and occasional visitors (e.g. delivery drivers, school psychologists, social workers etc) is an issue which should be included in any consideration of school travel modes, not simply pupil travel. Many schools have large numbers of vehicles arriving and departing in addition to those used by school staff, with corresponding demands on parking at school and increased safety risks around and in the school to pedestrians and cyclists.
ii. The information made available will vary according to the circumstances of the school but may include timetables for buses and trains, location of bus stops, cycle lanes, park and ride facilities etc.
Walking and Cycling
14. For all those children for whom distance and safety makes these reasonable choices walking and cycling should be vigorously promoted.
i. The Group wishes to commend the use of the Safer Routes to School Guidance produced by the West of Scotland Road Safety Forum which contains recommendations for safe walking distances and also the school travel booklet produced by West Lothian Council.
15. The level of provision of pedestrian and cycling training should be increased.
i. When they become available the results of the current pilot into pedestrian training should be widely disseminated
16. Improvements should continue to be made within school sites, in the vicinity of schools and in the management of schools to support these active travel modes.
i. The provision of lockers, secure cycle parking etc must go hand in hand with efficient management of the school day e.g. the opening of school doors earlier in inclement weather.
Provision of school transport
17. Local authorities and SPT must, in their provision of school transport, always consider fully integration with the public transport network; and the use of public transport must be fully considered in the development of school travel plans.
i. This recommendation and those which follow should not be limited to bus transport. Significant numbers of students are transported by rail and ferry and some issues also affect these modes.
ii. Integration of school and mainstream public transport is essential.
a. Budgetary factors - There can be significant benefits in terms of cost particularly in rural areas of the integration of school and mainstream public transport. In some rural areas the only public transport is that provided for the school journey. Some bus operators or depots of major operators rely for their base finance on school work which enables them to provide a range of other services to their local communities.
b. Influencing behaviour - Experience of using public transport at an early age, if positive, is likely to influence future behaviour at least to the extent that students will become familiar with the process of using public transport i.e. timetable, use of passes. They would therefore be less likely to take decisions to use a car in later life as a result of uncertainty of the "How do I actually do this?" type. Even the use of dedicated vehicles can contribute by giving experience of the social aspects of public transport. By including dedicated vehicles in information to pupils/parents about available transport in timetable format familiarity with this type of information can be built up.
18. A number of alternative methods have been used to address issues of vandalism and on board safety, both addressing behavioural issues and technical approaches. Studies of the impact of a range of approaches including on board CCTV and support for the production of teaching and training aids for operators, teachers and the police would be beneficial.
i. Vandalism and on board safety. Pupil Behaviour - inappropriate behaviour by pupils represents a significant problem for all parties involved in school transport. Bullying, violence and unsafe behaviours cause problems for other pupils and undermine parent's confidence in pupil transport sometimes resulting in them making other arrangements. Schools have to deal with the results of these behaviours so diverting them from their main function of educating children. Education authorities are faced with resolving the problems and additional costs for provision. Operators are faced with additional costs of damage to vehicles and threats to staff health and safety possibly aggravating problems of staff shortages. In addition where pupils are carried on the public transport network bad behaviour by pupils can discourage other passengers from making use of vehicles carrying school pupils.
ii. External Threats - Attacks on public transport vehicles and staff such as brick throwing are not restricted to school transport however they do have the additional characteristic of inter school or area rivalry. These types of incident frequently require intervention by Police or the community or the curtailment of services. In one area in addition to on board CCTV external cameras have been installed in an attempt to obtain evidence to permit further action to be taken.
iii. More publicity needs to be given to the guidance already available on behaviour on school transport.
19. Each local authority should provide appropriate guidance for drivers of school transport vehicles in their area for given situations e.g. heavy snow, vehicle breakdown.
i. The quality of this provision varies from area to area but it is seen as essential that there is some sort of code of practice agreed by all those involved as to the procedures that the driver must follow in various sets of circumstances e.g. heavy snow.
ii. The bus industry should ensure appropriate customer care training is made available to all staff involved in school transport.
Enforcement of traffic management measures
20. Local Authorities and the Police must be prepared to consider appropriate enforcement issues where this becomes necessary.
i. Consideration needs to be given to the issue of parents who live within a short walking distance of the school and who want to see their children delivered safely, yet the parents are unwilling to walk. The related issue of parents who drop children by car as they go to work and are unwilling to leave home a little earlier and drop children slightly further away also requires consideration.
ii. Physical measures to reduce and manage car parking outside schools where appropriate will form an integral part of safer routes to school schemes and school travel plans.
iii. Problems arise when parents and others dropping children off consistently ignore these measures. Clearly it is desirable to avoid conflict situations outside schools wherever possible. This problem should initially be tackled as a social education issue. Nevertheless, where this approach fails enforcement of parking and other restrictions must be considered.
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