School travel planning is a programme that aims to improve road safety and reduce the number of vehicles driving to and from school.
The programme works with primary, intermediate and secondary schools to encourage and increase the use of active travel modes to get to and from school.
As well as reducing congestion around schools, walking, cycling and scooting to school provides exercise for children and helps create healthy habits that last a lifetime.
In recent years, a lot of vehicle crashes involving Dunedin children happened around school time, most within 2km of schools. This shows a need to improve road safety around our schools.
What is a School Travel Plan?
A School Travel Plan is a tool to deliver practical actions to encourage walking and cycling and improve road safety for the journeys of children and staff to and from school. Actions aim to have less children being driven to and from school and less congestion at the school gate.
School Travel Plans are owned by the individual school, and supported by the School Traffic Safety Group, School Community Officers (SCO) and Dunedin City Council.
Classroom exercises, site visits and surveys can identify the issues around travelling to and from schools. Workshops or focus groups can help to analyse and plan actions. The action plan is the heart of the School Travel Plan and provides details about how actions will be delivered and monitored.
This could result in safe pick-up and drop-off arrangements, more walking, cycling, scooting, use of buses and ridesharing to and from school. A successful School Travel Plan leads to safe, active and healthy practices being the first choices for your school community.
How to develop a school travel plan
Set up a working group
Get a working group together to develop a school travel plan
The working group can include:
- Senior staff member (principal or deputy principal)
- Parents
- Member of the Board of Trustees
- Dunedin City Council travel advisor
- School Community Officer (SCO)
A student group can be set up to make sure their views and ideas are included in the plan.
Find out how people travel
Find out more about how students and parents travel to school and how they would like to do better.
Parents can tell you about the travel patterns of their children and what would help them make sustainable travel choices.
It’s worth asking the children what they prefer- children are often keen on active travel.
Develop a plan
After looking at the information, make an action plan.
Develop a school travel plan that includes aims, timelines and the simple things the school can do to support this.
Roll it out
Put the school travel plan to work.
Let the school community know – it’s a good idea to include updates in your school newsletters and other communications, such as your new enrolment packs for the families of new students.
Going forward
Make the school travel plan a part of the school board’s annual review process. Make sure the aims are on track and that any necessary changes happen.
We suggest repeating student and/or parent surveys every few years to see how the plan is going.
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Frequently asked questions
How will your School Travel Plan change parents’ habit of driving their children to school?
Parents often perceive that walking, cycling and public transport are not reliable and safe options and that driving is more convenient and faster than other travel choices. Your School Travel Plan can help children, parents and communities work out how to make their journey to school more active and safer.
Who develops your School Travel Plan?
A School Travel Plan is developed by the school, School Community Officers and the DCC transport team. A DCC transport team member can advise how to develop and deliver your School Travel Plan.
How will parents and the community be involved?
School Travel Plans are developed by the school community, including the principal and representatives of staff, board of trustees, parents and students. Regular communication through school newsletters, meetings, the school website is important to involve everyone associated with the school.
What is your school’s commitment?
- Your board of trustees could be asked to provide a representative on the working group and review the action plan and School Travel plan
- The principal could approve teacher time and resources, appoint a lead teacher, participate in the working group and supply information to the DCC
- The lead teacher could champion the plan within the school, which could include facilitating a student group and providing internal impetus
- Other school staff could be involved in delivering road safety education through use of NZTA curriculum resources
- Students could provide their ideas. Find out more about running a School Travel Planning student group
- Parents could participate in the working group or deliver actions such as leading a walking school bus or school patrol.
Could your School Travel Plan result in road changes around your school?
If road safety is an issue for your school, the DCC transport team will work with you to investigate problems and possible solutions.
Contact the DCC transport team on 03 477 4000.
What happens after your School Travel Plan is formalised?
Once you have developed and launched your School Travel Plan, you can implement and monitor it. Monitoring includes an annual review by the working group, looking at improvements and whether more support is needed.