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12. Travel to school: pupils in full-time education at school
12.1 Usual means of travel to school
12.1.1 In cases where the household includes one or more pupils in full-time education at school, the interviewer asks the Highest Income Householder (or his/her spouse/partner) about the usual method of travel to school of one of them (chosen at random from all the pupils in the household).
12.1.2. Table 24 shows that, in 2006, walking was reported to be the usual method of travel to school for 51% of pupils in full-time education at school, 24% were said to go by bus (17% by a school bus and 7% by ordinary service bus), and 22% by car or van. Only 1% cycled to school. Other modes, such as trains and taxis, were the usual method of travel for a total of about 2%.
12.1.3 There was little difference between the sexes, but there were differences by age. Generally, pupils aged up to 11 are at primary schools, and those aged 12 and over are at secondary schools. About 59% of pupils of primary school age walked to school, compared with 42% of those of secondary school age. This is not surprising: there are many more primary schools than secondary schools, so primary schools usually draw their pupils from smaller areas than secondary schools, and therefore it is generally easier to walk to a primary school than to a secondary school. For the same reason, only about 14% of primary school age children usually travelled to school by bus, compared with 37% of secondary school age pupils. A car or van was the usual main mode of travel to school for 26% of primary school age pupils but only 17% of secondary school age pupils.
12.1.4 Chart M shows how the usual main mode of travel to school changes as children grow older. It is produced from data for four years to provide a more reliable basis for the figures - even so, the percentages may fluctuate from one age to the next. (On average, each age from 5 to 15 has a total sample of perhaps 1,100-or-so pupils over the four years, so its figures may have "95% confidence limits" of up to, say, 3 or 4 percentage-points; other ages have smaller samples, and wider limits.) When considering the statistics that follow, it must be remembered that some of the estimates are based on small sample numbers, and so may be affected greatly by sampling errors.
12.1.5 As might be expected, the usual means of travel to school varied markedly with household income, type of area, and socio-economic classification. For example, of children from households with an annual net income of up to £10,000, 63% walked to school and 12% went by car or van, whereas, from "over £40,000" households, 42% walked and 29% went by car. 51-69% of pupils in towns and urban areas walked to school, compared with 24-33% of pupils in rural areas. The percentage who went by bus was about 11-27% for those in urban areas and small towns, and around 50% in rural areas. The percentage who travelled by car or van did not appear to vary as greatly with type of area, being between 15% and 24% in every case.
12.1.6 The interviewer asks for the name of the random schoolchild's school. Using the postcodes of the home and school, the straight line distance "as the crow flies" was estimated. (See section A.9 for more details on how the distance was calculated, and the apparent percentage walking a long distance.) 83% of pupils who live less than 1 km from school walked to school. This percentage falls rapidly, as the home / school distance increases. There is some variation with distance in travel to school by car or van: 13% for pupils living less than 1km away, and 30-34% for pupils living 1 to less than 5 km away; and 16-17% of those living more than 5 km away. Travel by bus varies much more with distance: e.g. 23% of pupils who live 1 to less than 2 km from school travelled by bus in contrast to over two-thirds of pupils who live over 5 km from school.
12.1.7 Table N shows the trends since the survey started. Some of the apparent year-to-year changes may be due to sampling variability. For example, the percentage taking the bus to school has "95% confidence limits" of about +/- 1.9 percentage-points, so all the apparent increases and decreases over the period could be due to sampling variability. However, leaving aside an occasional year-to-year fluctuation, the fall in the percentage who walk to school (from 54.7% in 1999 to 51.3% in 2006) and rise in the percentage who go by car (from 18.3% in 1999 to 21.5% in 2006) are both consistent with the longer term trends shown by the National Travel Survey, suggesting that these trends are continuing. There has been little change in the percentages using the other modes, which have remained around 22-24% (bus), 1% (rail) and 1% (bicycle), with minor year-to-year fluctuations likely to be due to sampling variability.
12.2 Reasons for travelling to school by the chosen method
12.2.1 The interviewer then asks the Highest Income Householder (or his/her spouse/partner) why that method of transport to school was used by the randomly-chosen schoolchild. (With effect from the start of 2005, this question has been asked only of a randomly-chosen half of the sample.) Table 25 shows the reasons given for the four main modes used. Data for six years (2001 to 2006) combined have been used, to provide a larger sample for analysis. For travel by car or van: 54% said it was the "most convenient" method, 19% said "safest method", 20% said "quickest method", and 16% said "too far to walk". As one would expect, the vast majority (83%) of those who walked to school did so because it was "close, nearby, not far away", 21% said "most convenient", 9% referred to "exercise / fresh air" and 8% said "quickest method". The percentages for reasons for using a school bus and using a service bus were broadly similar with 49-55% saying "most convenient"; 24-29% saying "too far to walk", 18-22% saying "only method available", 10-17% "quickest method" and 7-13% "safest method".
12.2.2 In cases where the pupil travels by car or van, the interviewer asks the Highest Income Householder (or his/her spouse/partner) whether the child could use public transport. Table 26 shows that (in the six years) 35% of pupils who travelled to school by car or van (55% of such secondary pupils and 27% of such primary pupils) could have used public transport. The interviewer then asks why the pupil cannot, or does not, use public transport. With effect from the start of 2005, this question has been asked only of a randomly-chosen sub-sample.
12.2.3 In the case of the 35% who could have used public transport, the main reasons identified for not doing so were "prefer to use a car" (40% of the sub-group overall; 32% of such primary pupils compared with 52% for secondary), it was "inconvenient" (38% of the sub-group overall; 33% of such primary pupils compared with 45% for secondary), and "too young to travel on own" (36% overall, but 56% for primary pupils in the sub-group compared with only 7% for secondary). "Cost/too expensive" was mentioned in the case of 9% of the sub-group.
12.2.4 In the case of the 64% of pupils who travelled to school by car or van (72% of such primary pupils compared to 43% of such secondary pupils) who could not have used public transport, the main reason given, for 54% of the sub-group, was that "no service was available" (50% for such primary pupils and 70% for such secondary pupils). Two reasons varied with the age of the pupil: 44% of such primary pupils were thought to be "too young to travel" compared with only 5% of such secondary pupils (38% of the sub-group overall), and public transport was said to be "inconvenient" for 9% of primary pupils in the sub-group compared with 16% of such secondary pupils (11% overall). The reason "too short a distance / not worth it" was given for 13% of the sub-group.
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