School travel plans

This is a section detailing the measures and initiatives an individual school will adopt to reduce car journeys, increase other methods of getting to school and improve safety for the journey to school. These can include walking, cycling and public transport initiatives as well as engineering and education programmes.

If a plan is to be successful it must be supported by the whole school community, ie parents, teachers, students, governors and the local community.  We support schools to develop their own plans by publishing guidelines and reviewing the completed plan to ensure they will be an effective tool to help the school manage its travel issues.

The DfT and DfES have set a target that every school should have a School Travel Plan by 2010. Schools are encouraged to get involved in the process and are supported by the Travelchoice Team to try a variety of initiatives to produce a sustained reduction in school journeys by car.

We have helped Buckinghamshire's schools reduce the number of children driven to school from 44% in 1999 to less than 30% and the reduction is continuing. 

The criteria for reviewing plans are:

Level One

A school that is in the early stages of travel planning. They have begun to take ownership of their travel issues and are keen to implement measures to address and resolve them. Contact has been made with the Travel Choice Team and a recognised school travel initiative is in place.

Level Two

A school that is developing a school travel plan. An STP co-ordinator has been identified and a representative working group has been set up. Research has been undertaken and aims and objectives established.  Evidence of this must be provided.

OR

A Level 3 that has not been sustained.

Level Three

A school that has an active school travel plan. The STP includes all of the key elements detailed in the BCC guidelines and Travel Choice website (What is a school travel plan?). In brief, these elements are:

• Identified the STP Co-ordinator and Working Group
• Detailed research - including usual and preferred mode of travel
• Signed Terms of Reference
• SMART targets
• Action Plan
• Plans for monitoring
• Be adopted by the school's governing body and included within the School Development Plan, or equivalent.
• Commit to providing an annual progress report of the STP to the Travel Planning team
• Commit to returning the BCC Travel Planning Annual Hands-Up survey