Effects and mechanisms of traffic restriction schemes outside schools in Great Britain

Aim

This project aims to assess whether traffic reduction schemes outside schools affect children’s levels of active commuting and travel and how is this is affected by geographical area or socio-economic context.

Background

Traffic restriction schemes outside schools are being introduced for a variety of reasons, including improving safety and air quality as well as promoting active travel to school. Children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution because of their developing respiratory systems. Research has found that replacing car trips with walking or cycling can result in environmental and health gains as well as healthcare cost savings.

Local communities or councils have often spearheaded traffic reduction schemes, which take many different forms. These include volunteers physically closing the streets during pick up and drop off times using bollards, or signage to announce restrictions and cameras to enforce them, with penalties issued to those who contravene them.

Many of these schemes are being implemented without an evidence base about their likely success. Few robust scientific studies exist on the effectiveness of these schemes in terms of how they change travel behaviour.

We aim to address this gap by providing evidence about how effective these schemes are, how they might work and how their results could be transferred to other settings. 

Design and methods

We are focusing on primary schools and are undertaking work in four areas using:

• Systems mapping, specifically causal loop diagrams to understand how these schemes can bring about effects in the wider system
• Qualitative methods, such as go-along interviews in three case study areas – Haringey, Sheffield, and Perth and Kinross to understand how children, parents, teachers and those working in local authorities think these schemes have been experienced
• Quantitative methods to assess the impacts of the scheme on behaviour using routinely collected data on children’s travel mode to school using a natural experimental design, exploring the impacts of changes in travel patterns on schools with and without schemes over time.

Public involvement

Two community partners whose interests lie in promoting active travel to school are involved in this work. Views on study design from community groups in the selected areas will be incorporated. We will also establish a school group to inform our work and co-design materials to communicate results.

Dissemination

The results will be particularly useful for policy makers and practitioners working in education, public health and transport. In addition to academic publications, we will disseminate the project’s results in a variety of formats to engage with different audiences, for example blogs and podcasts. The school group will be key to helping inform how best to share our findings.