Focus of work
The school run makes up over 25% of all London morning rush hour car journeys. Most of these journeys happen within the same 45-minute window, which creates congestion and pollution. But not every school is equal when it comes to driving rates; the further away pupils live from their school, the higher the propensity they are to be driven because these journeys are harder to make by active travel or public transport. Therefore, non-catchment schools (often private schools or faith schools), where pupils don’t live close to their school, have the highest driving rates. Scoot’s initial data analysis suggests that a private primary school pupil generates twice as many school run car trips as a state catchment pupil due to the differences in distance the children have to travel.
Scoot’s focus is to:
- Model data to provide insight into the London school run, including how far pupils are having to travel to school, how they are making these trips and then identifying school and school types with the highest driving rates.
- Research and promote sustainable travel solutions for longer school runs including cargo bikes and electric school mini-buses.
Impact
- Scoot’s data modelling will enable residents, councils, parents and schools to better understand school run car journeys and to identify where best to focus their efforts to reduce these trips.
- Scoot’s solution toolkit will provide information on a range of convenient, sustainable travel solutions that schools could provide for longer school run journeys. These include journey-sharing apps, cargo bikes and electric school mini-buses. This will enable parents to have more convenient alternatives to single occupancy car use than they do at present, and help to reduce the number of school run car trips being made.