Hands up for Scottish school travel

27 August 2009

Scotland's comprehensive survey of travel-to-school behaviour is to be repeated this year, following the success of the initial work.

Between 7 and 11 September, all of Scotland's school pupils will have the opportunity to take part in the second national 'hands up Scotland' survey - the largest and most comprehensive survey of travel-to-school behaviour.

The survey has been devised to give an in-depth view of how children of different ages, from different schools, and from different areas of Scotland choose to travel to and from school. Over the last four years, with £10million of funding from the Scottish Government, Sustrans has been supporting the development and implementation of projects and initiatives to increase the number of children walking and cycling to school.

The Hands Up Scotland Survey is a project delivered in partnership between Sustrans, the UK's leading sustainable transport charity, and School Travel Coordinators across all of Scotland's Local Authorities. It provides up-to-date information on how Scottish school children travel to and from school and is being undertaken for the second year.

The information from this year's Hands Up Scotland Survey will be used to identify where interventions have been successful in encouraging pupils to walk, cycle and use public transport, and highlight those regions and schools that need more support to give children the opportunity to make greener and healthier school travel choices.

The results of last year's first-ever Hands Up Scotland Survey were launched in May this year. They showed that more than half of all Scottish school children travel to school by active methods such as walking cycling and scooter - more than those who travel by car, bus or taxi. Last year's survey also showed that the number of Scottish children cycling and walking to school was higher than expected.

The Scottish Government in its Cycling Action Plan for Scotland (CAPS) has proposed using the annual Hands Up Scotland Survey to measure progress towards its stated goal of ten percent of Scots cycling by 2020.

William Methven, Sustrans' Manager for School Travel in Scotland, said: "We are urging all of Scotland's schools to take part in the second year of the Hands Up Scotland Survey. The information that we gain from the survey is invaluable."

"With childhood obesity, road safety issues and the impact of people's travel choices on climate change at the top of the agenda, it's crucial that we encourage and enable more young people to choose healthy, active and safe ways of travelling to school that also benefit the wider environment."

Chris Thompson, School Travel Coordinator at Moray Council, added: "We know that a lot of good things are happening around school travel at the moment, and pupils, parents and staff are achieving significant changes in travel behaviour. This national survey of school travel gives us the chance to underline that success with robust data and demonstrate not just the value of the work completed to date, but also point us towards future targets with greater certainty."

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