Transportation

, Volume 40, Issue 1, pp 69–90 | Cite as

Quantifying the transport-related impacts of parental school choice in England

  • Jessica Van Ristell
  • Mohammed Quddus
  • Marcus Enoch
  • Chao Wang
  • Peter Hardy
Article
First Online:

Abstract

School travel is becoming increasingly car-based and this is leading to many environmental and health implications for children all over the world. One of several reasons for this is that journey to school distances have increased over time. This is a trend that has been reinforced in some countries by the adoption of so-called ‘school choice’ policies, whereby parents can apply on behalf of their child(ren) to attend any school, and not only the school they live closest to. This paper examines the traffic and environmental impacts of the school choice policy in England. It achieves this by analysing School Census data from 2009 from the Department for Education. Multinomial logit modelling and mixed multinomial logit modelling are used to illustrate the current travel behaviour of English children in their journey to school and examine how there can be a significant reduction in vehicle miles travelled, CO2 emissions and fuel consumption if the ‘school choice’ policy is removed. The model shows that when school choice was replaced by a policy where each child only travelled to their ‘nearest school’ several changes occurred in English school travel. Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) by motorised transport fell by 1 % for car travel and 10 % for bus travel per day. The reduction in vehicle miles travelled could lead to less congestion on the roads during the morning rush hour and less cars driving near school gates. Mode choice changed in the modelled scenario. Car use fell from 32 to 22 %. Bus use fell from 12 to 7 %, whilst NMT saw a rise of 17 %. With more children travelling to school by walking or cycling the current epidemic of childhood obesity could also be reduced through active travel.

Keywords

Schools Mode choice Vehicle miles travelled Fuel consumption CO2 emissions 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the UK Department for Education for supplying the dataset for this research. Thanks are also due to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and JMP Transport Consultants Ltd for their contributions to this study and for funding this research.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • Jessica Van Ristell
    • 1
  • Mohammed Quddus
    • 1
  • Marcus Enoch
    • 1
  • Chao Wang
    • 1
  • Peter Hardy
    • 2
  1. 1.Transport Studies Group, School of Civil and Building EngineeringLoughborough UniversityLeicestershireUK
  2. 2.JMP Transport Consultants LimitedBirminghamUK

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