Sustainable Modes of Travel Strategy 2007-2010

The Sustainable Modes of Travel Strategy is being developed in response to both local and national initiatives. For the last few years many schools in Rochdale have been writing school travel plans. Thesehelp schools understand the travel arrangements and aspirations of their pupils, and implement measures that will improve safety on the school journey, reduce the number of car trips and encourage walking, cycling and other sustainable modes of transport to school.

• Introduction
• Vision and Aims
• Background: Local Context
• Background: School Travel Plans
• Background: School Travel Patterns
• Delivery of the Strategy
• Targeting Schools
• Taking Action
• Measuring Progress

Introduction

The Sustainable Modes of Travel Strategy is being developed in response to both local and national initiatives. For the last few years many schools in Rochdale have been writing school travel plans. These help schools understand the travel arrangements and aspirations of their pupils, and implement measures that will improve safety on the school journey, reduce the number of car trips and encourage walking, cycling and other sustainable modes of transport to school. We are working towards the Department for Transport (DfT)/Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) target of all schools to have an approved plan by 2010. In June 2007 58 per cent (58 of the council’s 100 schools) had an approved plan.

The Education and Inspections Act 2006 places a duty on local councils to promote the use of sustainable transport on the home to school journey. (Sustainable modes of travel are defined as those that the local council considers may improve the physical well-being of those who use them, the environmental well-being of all or part of the local authorities area, or a combination of the two).

The duty applies to children and young people of sixth form age and below. It includes not only to those who live in our area but also to those who live outside Rochdale who travel into our area to receive education or training.

Vision and Aims

To ensure that we maximise the opportunities for every child in the Borough to travel healthily and sustainably to school.

Our three aims are to:

1. Encourage all stakeholders to promote sustainable travel to school;
2. Improve the sustainable travel infrastructure to and from school;
3. Enable behavioural change of the whole school.

Background: Local Strategic Context

How pupils travel to school cuts across many areas of the work of the local authority and partner agencies.

Aiming High – Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council’s Corporate Plan (Draft)

The promotion of sustainable travel to school has been raised through consultation with members as a key objective within the Corporate Plan.

Pride of Place – Sustainable Community Strategy of the Local Strategic Partnership

The strategy will contribute towards all of the five strategic objectives of the Community Plan through;

• Increasing jobs and prosperity - Tackling congestion and creating a healthier, more productive workforce for the future
• Making sure every child matters - Improving the health and safety of our children and young people.
• Creating a cleaner greener environment - Tackling issues of air quality and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Improving community safety - Contributes to road safety and increase natural surveillance and more active safer streets.
• Improving health and well being - Tackling childhood obesity, promoting healthy lifestyles, and increase community cohesion.

Local Area Agreement

The Local Area Agreement sets out the main priorities for the Local Strategic Partnership and sets the direction for prioritisation for all agencies and organisations. Work on school travel is a cross cutting activity which will meet the following key objectives;

Key Objective 4 – Keeping our children and young people safe, healthy, educated, economically successful and participating.

This strategy seeks to be the primary mechanism for delivery of a key LAA target within the ‘Be Healthy’ outcome of key objective 4, which aims to increase the number of schools with an approved school travel plan (STP) to 100% by March 2010.

It will also contribute towards other childrens outcomes through;

• Halting the year on year rise in childhood obesity
• Increasing the number of primary, secondary, special schools and the PRU, across the Borough achieving the new National Healthy Schools Status. (Stretch target)

Key Objective 3 – Better health and well being

The strategy will contribute directly to Outcome 1 and 3 to reduce health in equalities and promote healthy lifestyles.

Key Objective 1B – Safer, Stronger Communities

It will contribute directly to Outcome 1 - Cleaner, greener & safer public spaces, through tackling local air quality, and to Outcome 4 - Tackling climate change through reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The Children and Young People’s Plan

The strategy will be consistent with the five priorities of the Children

and Young People’s Plan:

• Be Healthy
• Stay Safe
• Enjoy & Achieve
• Make a Positive Contribution
• Achieve Economic Well-Being

Work on school travel directly impacts upon the ‘be healthy’ strand of the Children & Young People’s Plan through promotion of physical activity and tackling sedentary lifestyles.

In addition the strategy contributes towards the other priorities through the recognised contribution that active modes of travel make to educational performance, and tackling the issue of safety around the school gates.

Healthy Lifestyles Strategy

It will contribute towards health and physical activity targets, especially;

• Obesity in children: - Halting the year on year rise in obesity among children under 11 by 2010, in the context in a broader strategy to tackle obesity in the population as a whole

• Physical activity (children): - Enhance the take up of sport by 5-16 year olds by increasing the percentage of school children spending 2 or more hours per week on high quality physical education and school sport within and beyond the curriculum, from 25% in 2002 to 75% by 2006 and 85% by 2008, and at least 75% in each school sports partnerships by 2008.

The Government also has targets to treble cycling levels between 2000-2010, a recent Commons Health Select Committee report on obesity has stated that ‘if the Government were to achieve its target of trebling cycling in the period 2000-2010 … that might achieve more in the fight against obesity than any individual measure recommended in the rest of the report’.

Background: School travel plans

As stated above, all local authorities have a target of ensuring that all schools in the authority have an approved school travel plan by 2010. Currently in Rochdale (as of June 2007) 58% of schools have an approved school travel plan. This is higher than both the national figure of 56% and the North West figure of 49%.

Background: School travel patterns

Data on travel modal splits has been measured in various ways over the past few years, with the most recent method of survey being a section in the School Census. Prior to this there has been an annual hands-up surveys. Both of these methods of data collection have suggested an increasing shift towards car use within Rochdale Borough. Walking is still the most dominant mode, however the car now follows this very closely. This is particularly surprising given the relatively low level of car ownership in the Borough.

A Graph Showing the Modal Split for Usual Mode of Transport for Pupils in Schools (Primary and Secondary Combined) in Rochdale.

Looking at the table above we can see that car use on the school run in Rochdale is over 5% above the Greater Manchester (GM) average and almost 8% above the national average. Walking and Cycling levels are just below the GM and national average; and use of public transport is approximately half of the GM and national figures. This can be represented graphically.

A Graph Showing the Modal Split for Usual Mode of Transport for Pupils in Schools (Primary and Secondary Combined) in Rochdale, Greater Manchester and Nationally.

If we examine the breakdown between primary and secondary Schools we can firstly see that car use is much higher in primary than in secondary schools, as might be expected. Comparing Rochdale figures with Greater Manchester and national figures, we can see that car use in primary schools in much higher. In Secondary schools, the differences are less significant.

This information can be represented graphically.

A Graph Showing the % car use in Primary and Secondary Schools in Rochdale, Greater Manchester and Nationally.

The Effect of Intensive Work with Schools

Borough wide figures do not show the beneficial effect of work to reduce car dependence in selected schools. In addition to the standard activities which have been undertaken with schools during the course of the development of school travel plans, we have also been carrying out some more intensive work. This intensive work has largely been the result of a partnership between RMBC’s Sustainability Team and Sustrans’ Bike IT scheme. A small number of schools were selected and offered a structured course of intensive activities (e.g. assemblies, skills sessions, lessons, bike maintenance, and rides) aimed at promoting cycling. The change in modal split seen as a result of this is extremely positive, with an impressive level of 44% cycling more than once a week seen in one school.

In addition to these cycling initiatives, we have also been working with schools on various walking projects. Of particular interest is the development of walking buses. 12 schools in the borough have been successful in their application for a walking bus grant (from DfT), which we hope will a significant impact on levels of walking in primary schools.

These intensive walking and cycling projects form the basis of our ‘Bike and Boot’ work which we aim to continue.

Delivery of the Strategy

RochdaleCouncil is developing an active partnership of local, sub-regional and national organisations to tackle the increasing problem of non-sustainable travel to school. The School Travel Steering Group is being led by the Head of Learners & YoungPeople's Services of Rochdale MBC, the group consists of representatives from:

• Schools
• Road Safety
• Sustainability Team
• Highways (Network Development)
• School Reorganisation
• School Transport Commissioning
• GMPTE
• Rochdale Education for Sustainability Network
• Rochdale, Heywood and Middleton PCT
• Sustrans (BikeIT)

The Sustainability Team within Environmental Management is responsible for the development of school travel plans directly with the school, this links in with their activities on Eco-Schools, and the promotion and development of travel planning and the cycling and walking strategies.

Within the context of the Local Strategic Partnership, this strategy will be led through the Children’s Trust – the Children and Young People’s Partnership for the Borough. The Rochdale Borough Environment Partnership and the Health Partnership will also be active partners in ensuring that the strategic benefits of more sustainable travel to school are realised.

Targeting Schools

Concerns over school travel cover all of Rochdale Borough. As a result schools have been initially targeted through aggressive marketing of the benefits of travel planning, resulting in a high number of schools self-selecting.

We are also focussing upon ensuring that the travel planning issues are being incorporated into the design and operation of all the new schools within the Schools Reorganisation Programme. This approach was successful in engaging the first wave of Travel Plans, however more recently the School Travel Group has been targeting schools that are known to have particular traffic issues or high numbers of RTA’s.

Marketing activities have included the Schools’ Bulletin, a termly newsletter that goes out to all schools across the borough and via an email to all head teachers. Further information has also been distributed through the Eco Schools Newsletter and Rochdale Education for Sustainability Network (RESN) emails and meetings. RESN members, who work closely with schools on sustainability issues, were asked to promote travel plans and the grants available to the schools they visited.

Rochdale Borough wide network of Eco Schools have been directly targeted through a series of presentations and displays at Eco Schools meetings, explaining the added value of linking the two initiatives. Similar activity is going on with Healthy Schools, including the annual Healthy Schools Conference for Rochdale and Bury.

More specific targeting has taken place with schools who had applied to the RMBC Schools Cycle Parking Fund (see details in ‘other support’) and those schools who were taking part in the BikeIT scheme run by Sustrans, and the New Opportunities Fund project ‘BikEDlinx’ in north Rochdale.

Taking action

AIM 1: Encourage all stakeholders to promote sustainable travel to school

Key to the success of this strategy is effective engagement with the school community. The level of support offered to schools will depend entirely upon their needs. No school will have a travel plan written for them, including the new schools in the School Reorganisation Programme and Schools for the Future.

Currently, all schools are offered advice and the support they need to develop a travel plan, whether it is templates for guidance on the plan itself, guidance on preparing surveys, classroom activities and assemblies or meetings with parents, residents or other stakeholders involved in the individual travel plans. They are also advised on initiatives to help them achieve the aims and objectives of the travel plan such as setting up walking buses, where to get cycle training and bus / train information.

We help schools analyse survey data, devise initiatives, and monitor success, but the ownership of the plan is always with the School. To some schools, the process of developing a Travel Plan fits well with their existing Eco-schools or Healthy Schools programmes, these often require a lower level of support due to already established steering groups and a high level of environmental awareness.

Subject to continuing resources, all schools in the Travel Plan Programme will be offered continuing support to make their activity sustainable. This includes:

• Monitoring progress
• Action plan reviews
• Talks and presentations
• Help with leaflets and publicity
• Grant funding and installation of equipment
• Cycle and pedestrian training
• Integration into the National Curriculum
• Signposting to other environmental and health activities

Key to the future success of these travel plans will also be the embedding of the Travel Plan within the School Development Plans, and engagement of the whole school through School Councils and Boards.

There is also a need to raise awareness of the importance of tackling unsustainable travel to school and building capacity for all stakeholders to make a positive contribution to this strategy.

AIM 2: Improve the sustainable travel infrastructure to and from school

UDP Accessibility Hierarchy

1. Pedestrians and disabled people
2. Cyclists
3. Public Transport
4. Taxis, private hire vehicles and commercial traffic for local access
5. General Traffic (off-peak)
6. General Traffic (peak)

Appropriate infrastructure, tailored to the needs of pupils and parents is key to delivery of this strategy. As traffic levels and congestion increases it is becoming clear that the current sustainable travel infrastructure can no longer cope and is in need of modification to ensure that the Access Hierarchy stated in the Unitary Development System is achieved, whereby those walking, cycling, or using public transport to school are prioritised over other forms of travel.

Local Transport Plan

Support from the Local Transport Plan is critical to improving the on-highway infrastructure to support sustainable travel to schools. RMBC will seek to increase the resources available to directly implement School Travel Plans and the Sustainable Modes of Travel To School Audits. In particular through;

• Cycling infrastructure
• Pedestrian schemes
• Safe Routes to School projects
• Local Safety Schemes

In addition to LTP funding the authority will seek to maximise the potential for external funding sources. RMBC has a strong track record in accessing external funding including;

Schools Cycle Parking Fund

RMBC Schools Service fund, operated by the Sustainability Team, which has provided 336 cycle spaces at 23 schools, over its 3 year life.

The fund attracted external funds of £27,500 from DfT in its second year, and helped to attract over £130,000 Lottery funding for BikEDlinx.

BikEDLinx

A Lottery funded, area wide scheme in north Rochdale, completed in 2006, which includes a secondary school and 6 primary schools. Its purpose is to provide a linked network of cycle and walking routes between the schools, homes and green spaces.

Physical works comprise improvements to existing routes and linked new routes to create a coherent, practical network. Routes are signed and are included on the Borough Cycle Map. Two National Cycle Network routes pass through the area, with the east to west route, Route 80, implemented as part of the scheme.

The network was promoted throughout the project with cyclist training, led cycle rides, route planning with pupils, and Bike It work (see Behaviour Change Strategy) in some of the schools.

National Cycle Network and Links to Schools

Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity, created the National Cycle Network (NCN) with Local Authority partners. Monitoring of the NCN since 2003 has shown significant increases in walking and cycling on the network, with the greatest increases on off-highway sections (the National Travel Survey does not take off-highway trips into account). Recent research shows NCN infrastructure to have benefit to cost ratios averaging 20:1, at least double the ratios for typical road or public transport schemes. These facts support the Rochdale strategy for sustainable travel infrastructure.

DfT, Cycling England and Sustrans created grant schemes for investment in school links to the NCN from 2005.

• Links to Schools granted £17000 towards cycle and walk links to Shawclough School in 2005.
• In 2006 Links to Schools granted Rochdale MBC £100,000 towards the implementation of National Cycle Network Route 92 and a link to Belfield School.
• Route 92 runs from the Healey Dell Cycleway to the Rochdale Canal towpath, and links six schools in the BikEDlinx area, including Shawclough, to the wider NCN.
• During 2007 a 4.5 km stretch of the Rochdale Canal towpath is being reconstructed as NCN Route 66. The works connect four other schools to the NCN, and provide access to employment at Kingsway Business Park. Funding is from ERDF and LTP.
• In 2007 a bid was made to Sustrans’ Connect 2 project. If successful, this bid will connect many more schools to the NCN and high quality local walking and cycling links (see below).
• Sustainability staff manage bids, feasibility studies and implementation with assistance from Highways & Engineering.

Rochdale’s Green Network Masterplan

The Links to Schools concept, local multi user links to national standard routes, has resulted in a masterplanning exercise called Rochdale’s Green Network. A series of potential routes to National Cycle Network standards, and in rural areas to National Trail bridleway standards, was drawn up using existing routes, potential routes and areas of opportunity. The aim of the Green Network is to locate a Green Network route within 800 metres of 90% of households in the borough, and to form local links to the routes. Most of the Green Network has been surveyed by Sustrans for practicality, likely use, alternative routes, and cost. A cost estimate of over £2 million excluding highway works and local links means that the Green Network is unlikely to be achieved in the short term. However, the exercise is of great value in identifying projects for major bids such as Connect2 (see next section), planning gain requests, and unifying work on cycling and walking infrastructure. It is self evident that that a complete Green Network would create an almost complete sustainable travel to school network, with only inter school links likely to be missing.

Sustrans’ Connect2: Rochdale Canal Towpath Connections

Following the masterplanning work, an opportunity arose to bid for key parts of the Green Network. Rochdale’s bid made the final list of 79 Connect2 schemes, from over 400 applications. Connect2 is a UK-wide project developed by Sustrans which aims to improve local travel in 79 communities by creating new, high standard, walking and cycling routes for the local journeys we make every day.

The aim of Rochdale Canal Towpath Connections is to create a high quality network of walking and cycling friendly routes, which will connect the townships of Rochdale, Heywood, Middleton and Littleborough, and provide links to Oldham and Manchester. By improving the canal towpath and forming links from it to surrounding communities, the project will remove the barriers to walking and cycling currently posed by the M62, major arterial roads and the railway line. Connect2 will provide a network of healthy and sustainable routes for everyone in the Borough, whether people are travelling to school or work, visiting friends and family or enjoying the leisure opportunities of the Pennines.

Connect2 is one of six projects competing for a single grant of £50 million from the Big Lottery Fund’s Living Landmarks: The People’s Millions. The winning project will be decided by public TV vote, currently expected in December 2007.

AIM 3: Enable behavioural change of the whole school.

There is evidence that the provision of infrastructure alone is not completely effective in changing the way people travel. There are some cases where infrastructure alone does work, for example a highly visible route to a well used location such as a station, or some National Cycle Network routes with suppressed demand. However, the majority of infrastructure for active travel does not tend to get the wide knowledge of its existence and usefulness that a new road scheme inevitably generates.

Rochdale borough is geographically constrained by its river valley location into narrow transport corridors which have not lent themselves to an easy mix of road transport and active travel – routes away from traffic have tended to be high level moorland routes, not suitable or direct enough for utility journeys. Rochdale has consequently prioritised capital spending on active travel into routes such as the canal towpath, rail line routes and some historic links, which will provide relatively traffic free routes to key destinations. The long term challenge is to provide it to most destinations and ensure quality of design (see Green Network; Connect 2 above)

Evidence from Smarter Choices, Sustainable Travel Towns, Travelsmart, and Sustrans Bike It makes it clear that more sustained behaviour change per pound spent is created by behavioural change programmes than by major infrastructure projects. Some of the key actions in these programmes ensure that participants in the scheme know about, have maps of, and if necessary are guided along the sustainable travel routes in their area. The relative amounts of infrastructure and behavioural change expenditure will vary according to the project, its visibility and whether infrastructure is required before behaviour change work takes place.

With a reasonable level of infrastructure in place for school journeys and cycle parking at schools in place, behaviour change programmes have a good chance of success in Rochdale. An example of ongoing success and a component of the future strategy is Bike It.

Sustrans Bike It

Bike It is Sustrans’ highly successful project which engages schools for direct cycle promotion work. Bike breakfasts, after school cycle clubs, maintenance classes, skills events, led rides and cycle to school days are some of the activities undertaken, and cycling at all Bike it schools has at least quadrupled.

Rochdale was one of the pilot Local Authorities selected to work with Bike It. Good support from Rochdale staff, and success with the initial four schools, led Sustrans to offer further work with two new schools. Successful launch days, events, training and Bike to School Days have resulted in between 50 and 70 children cycling to school at least one day per week, with up to 44% of pupils cycling to school, and daily cycling levels in summer well above the 2% national average, around 19%. Of particular note is that nearly all cycle trips replaced car trips.

A Bike ‘n Boot officer has been appointed to achieve further cycling and walking in six selected schools per year, based on the Bike It scheme.

Engagement work with six schools included a partnership with British Cycling. “Go Ride” skills events raised the profile of cycling in schools, a Go Ride competition was held at the start line of a national cycle race held in Rochdale town centre, and the school teams had trial sessions at Manchester Velodrome.

Further support for behavioural change is provided by the authority;

Road Safety Training

The RSU provides input in to every Primary School class in the Borough, offering classroom sessions from Reception to Year 5 Pedestrian Skills sessions are offered to Year 2 and 3 with Year 6 attending Crucial Crew which is a personal safety event covering themes from Road Safety, First Aid, Water Safety etc.

All High Schools are offered input in to each year group, so if a High has 8 classes per year group that would be 40 classroom sessions through the school year. The module content ranges from car theft, in-car safety, Pedestrian Safety and with Year 11 in conjunction with BSM a Pre-Drive module including driver theory and a practical drive.

Cycle Training

Cycle training is offered to all Year 6 Primary children but due to staffing, places are limited to 16 children per course. If a school is unfortunate not to be selected one year it is prioritised the next. Outside agencies are also available if funding can be obtained to pay for extra cycle training.

Walk and cycle planning

The Sustainability Team has a brief to facilitate, as well as promote, active and sustainable travel in the borough. Sustainability Team staff are involved in liaison between departments and leading specific initiatives or projects. For school travel, the work includes design advice on site and access planning at new or rebuilt schools, and detail work with Highways & Engineering.

Walking Buses

In March 2007, twelve schools in Rochdale were successful in applying for a Department for Transport grant of £1000 to set up walking buses. A further six schools received £500 to use for initiatives that promote walking to school. In order to be eligible for two years’ further funding, schools must save an average of 25 return car journeys per week, and are working with the Council’s school travel advisers to set up these schemes.

Miles Further Scheme

From September 2007, schools will be able to take part in the ‘Miles Further’ scheme; a set of resources that reward children for travelling to school sustainably, and also allow teachers to keep a record of how pupils are travelling to school. Unlike ‘Walk on Wednesday’ schemes, Miles Further can be used to reward cycling and also independent travel in SEN schools.

Curriculum resources

The Rochdale Education for Sustainability Network has been working with the School Travel Team to devise a range of curriculum opportunities for schools, additional support has come from GMPTE.

Future strategy for direct engagement with schools.

The evidence from Bike It and similar direct engagement processes (Individualised Travel Marketing, Sustainable Travel Towns) points to the probability that Travel Plans alone are not enough to ensure modal shift. From the starting point of a Travel Plan, direct engagement with schools is needed in most cases. This is because most schools will opt for the easy options in a travel plan such as road safety talks and promoting walk to school week, which do not create long term modal shift. Many Rochdale schools have not, despite much persuasion by School Travel Advisers, used grants for cycle parking – “It’s too dangerous to promote” being the main reason given.

Bike It evidence shows that the schools which achieve most modal shift are those which take on most and varied activities – led bike rides in particular, but not restricted to these because they need to be used as a reward. As the school experiences Bike It and its effect, there is more confidence that the work is worth sustaining from within the school, and school champions/activity leaders can be trained to run Bike It activities when Bike It staff move on to other schools.

Bike It has been used as an example because the evidence is available for cycling promotion at this level. To some extent the same will apply to walking, but it should be noted that more children want to cycle than walk. Cycle promotion is pushing at an open door, mainly kept closed by adults.

Measuring Progress

In order to measure progress we have devised a number of initial indicators. These cover the range of work currently taking place. The targets for modal shift is currently in development will be finalised by the end of 2007/8.

Current Funding

The DCSF/DfT Bursary of £27,000 has been spent on the employment of a dedicated school travel advisor and associated revenue support. This supplements the existing resources or the Council and its partners, in particular Road Safety, Sustainability Team, and Highways & Engineering.

Rochdale has been allocated a grant of £16,000 for three years to carry out the sustainability audit of routes to schools.

In addition to this external grant funding has been sought for a range of initiatives:

• £25,000 pa from the New Deal for Schools for the Schools Cycle Parking Fund, matched with £27,500 from the DfT Cycle Projects Fund;
• £130,000 until 2006/7 for the BikEDlinx Project, matched with £110,000 LTP (see above)
• £17,000 from the DfT Sustrans Routes to School Programme, matched with £22,000 LTP.
• £15,000 from Neighbourhood Renewal Fund to encourage healthy travel to school and increase cycle training in the most deprived areas of the Borough.
• £100,000 from Sustrans/Cycling England Links to Schools Fund, matched with £80,000 HMRF/ERDF.

Additional spending has also to be gained from the LTP for the implementation of schemes associated with STPs.

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