Back to School Travel Plan
Key Messages
1. Walking and cycling are good for you
"Building exercise into your day is all-important, especially for children. Even leaving the car at home and walking half an hour a day is going to benefit them greatly and prepare them well for adulthood. Parents should listen to what their kids want and try to encourage this, wherever possible."
Professor Stuart Biddle, Professor of Exercise & Sport Psychology, Loughborough University. |
- Walking helps burn calories. A 60kg (about nine and a half stone) person walking at 3mph burns about 99 calories per half hour. Brisk walking at 4mph burns about 150 calories in the same time. Heavier people will burn more calories.
- Walking to school not only means a healthy body, but also a healthy mind: nine in ten teachers in a Department for Transport survey consider that the walk to school makes children brighter, more alert and ready for the first class of the day.
- Experts advise that children and young people should achieve a total of at least 60 minutes of at least moderate intensity physical activity each day. At least twice a week this should include activities to improve bone health (activities that produce high physical stresses on the bones), muscle strength and flexibility. Walking or cycling to school can make an important contribution to this.
- Walking or cycling to school is a great way to get fit for sport - children
- Children travelling in cars regularly ingest up to three times more pollution than pedestrians on the same route.
2. Save money by walking or cycling
- Families spend over £300 on the drive to school in petrol costs and wear and tear to the average car per year. Imagine what you could do with that money instead.
- Walking and cycling are also free - you don't have to join a gym and you don't need to wear lots of lycra to get yourself into shape.
3. Try a greener way to get to school
- Each year parents drive an average of 600 miles taking their children to school and back. This is enough to cover the London marathon 23 times. Over the whole of England, this adds up to a total of over a billion petrol-burning miles a year.
- Walking and cycling to school makes a valuable contribution to reducing CO 2 emissions and tackling climate change.
4. Walking to school is good for your social life...
- Nearly nine out of ten parents who walk their children to school see it as a better way of meeting new people than going to pubs, clubs or supermarkets.
- Walking their children to school allows parents to spend more quality time with their children without the distraction of having to drive. They can help them learn about their local environment and develop crucial road safety skills.
- It's not always possible to walk to school, so the school bus can be a good alternative: one in seven adults who took the bus to school in their youth say they met a future boyfriend or girlfriend on the bus, or when waiting at the bus stop.
5. Children want to walk to school
- Kids see the school run as a great way to be sociable, with nearly half (47%) saying that the best thing about walking or cycling to school was catching up with friends.
- The worst things about going to school by car, according to the children, are getting stuck in traffic, cars causing pollution, lack of exercise, not meeting classmates
- Walking increases children's independence.
6. Safety
- Walking and cycling can be safe as well as good for you - parents
- Training can make walking and cycling much safer
- Less congestion around the school gates makes it a safer place for children - parents and schools
- More walking and cycling leads to safer communities
- The more walking and cycling there is, the safer this becomes - parents and schools
7. Commercial
Public Transport Service Providers
- More children travelling to school by public transport contributes to your profits.
- Children who get used to travelling to school by public transport are more likely to continue to use it in later life.
- Anti-social behaviour on buses is not an insoluble problem.
Bicycle Manufacturers and retailers
- More children travelling to school by bike contributes to your profits.
Local shopkeepers
- Fewer children on the school run helps everyone else get there more easily - local business
- Local shops will benefit from more passing trade and familiarisation with services and shops in local areas - local shopkeepers.
8. Mobility and Inclusion
- There are sustainable travel options for all pupils no matter what schools they attend.
- Reducing car use and improving safety are not the only benefits of school travel plans; they also have many other benefits including increased confidence and independent mobility for pupils with special educational needs, and success in engaging schools and pupils in deprived areas.
9. Financial Cost of Transporting Children by Car
- Ferrying your child to and from school by car is far from cheap, as im sure drivers will know. The internet bank Egg puts forward the following figures - 'The average annual cost for a household doing the school run is £402 per year - a total cost of £1.66 billion. Petrol accounts for almost 80% of costs as parents pay over £3,000 on fuel over the "school run" life of their child. 331,000 vehicles are likely to be damaged this year as parents take their children to and from school.' See Press Release below for details.
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