SchoolTravelHealthCheck.co.uk

3.1 Standard Analysis Output - Excel Spreadsheets

The comprehensive range of spreadsheets supplied back to officers in client authorities include charts and graphs wherever possible and fall into the following general categories...

Mode Of Travel Stats - show the census data as it is usually presented - summarised as a "number and percentage by mode" - along with key indicator fields calculated by our analysis process. The key fields are the number and percentage of Pupils living within the Walk Threshold Travelling by Car as well as the overall travel carbon footprint per pupil. We use a simple traffic light system with respect to the authority school average to rate the school - Green is >10% below authority average; Amber is within 10% of authority average; Red is >10% above authority average. This RAG (Red, Amber, Green) rating is also included in the STHC report. The output also contains an additional version of this spreadsheet, which is specifically formatted to be printed out at A1 size for sending to schools.

Actual (& Nearest) Distance Stats - translate the "numbers & percentages by mode" of the Mode of Travel stats into distances the ground - both the distance to the school the pupil actually attends ("Actual Distance") and that of the nearest eligible school defined by national curriculum year ("Nearest Distance").

Carbon & Calorie Stats - translate the distances of the Actual & Nearest Distance stats, which are only for a single journey between home and school, into total jpourney distances (home - school - home), and thence into either the calories burned by pupils during the walk or cycle or the CO₂ emitted if travelling by vehicle. From these it is then possible to calculate the total school travel carbon footprint down to individual school level on a per pupil basis, which can then be turned into an overall sustainable travel rating for the school. It is these "carbon and calorie" figures that link the data to the "Sustainable Schools" and "Healthy Schools" agendas.

Cross Border Stats - As it sounds, this spreadsheet quantifies the movement of pupils across the borders of the consortium authorities. All the LEAs in which the pupils home postcodes are situated are identified along with the actual numbers of pupils coming from each, for all the authorities that are part of the analysis dataset. The ability to calculate the pupil flows between LEAs will inform the creation of Travel to Learn Areas, an important feature of the emerging 14-19 agenda.

Distance Profile Stats - Provide an immediate feel for how the different travel modes are distributed according to distance from the school. In particular they show the 85^th & 95^th percentile distance values for each subset of the data (the former is a standard indicator used by traffic engineers).

“It was extremely informative to go through the range of analysis for the schools in South East Dorset. It provided a lot of food for thought for us in the development of the transport strategies for the South East Dorset area to 2026.”

“We have had to prepare the transport model from scratch and have therefore been involved in an extensive and expensive data collection programme in order to assemble a comprehensive picture of travel patterns and behaviour across South East Dorset. We were therefore delighted to learn about the journey to school data which provided a fully observed picture of travel to school by the variety of modes. The journey to school data was particularly useful in filling in gaps in the travel demand matrices for journeys by private car and public transport. The level of detail and the comprehensive nature of the data meant that it was an ideal basis to supplement the other sources of data.”

“The Journey to school data was vital for us to be able to fill in the gaps between the different roadside interview sites. In other studies we have had to make simplifying assumptions about travel between the interview sites; to be able to use the Journey to School database was a real bonus for us.”
Abridged comments from Robert Thompson, Business manager Policy and Plans, Atkins Transport planning, commenting on the contribution the STHC has made to the South East Dorset multi modal study (underpins LTP3 and MAA).