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Northern Ireland Office;Northern Ireland Roads Service

Answer

Mr. Beggs: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment the Government have made of the operation of the School Travel Plan Pilot; and what plans there are to extend its scope. [189671] Mr. Spellar: The Chief Executive of Roads Service (Dr. Malcolm McKibbin) has been asked to write to the hon. Gentleman in response to this question. Letter from Dr. Malcolm McKibbin to Mr. Roy Beggs, dated 27 September 2004: You recently asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland a Parliamentary Question about what assessment the Government has made of the operation of the School Travel Plan Pilot; and what plans there are to extend its scope. I have been asked to reply as this issue falls within my responsibility as Chief Executive of Roads Service. You will be aware that, as proposed by the Regional Transportation Strategy 2002-12, Roads Service has been working to address the issue of the `school run', given its impact on morning traffic congestion, through the Travelwise "Safer Routes to Schools" initiative. The overall aim of this initiative is to encourage more children to walk, cycle and use public transport for their journey to school. The Department of Education, the Department of the Environment Road Safety Team and other agencies are working alongside Roads Service in this project. The following six schools are currently participating in the initiative: St. Joseph's College, Belfast; Oakwood Integrated Primary School, Dunmurry; Wallace High School, Lisburn; St. Anthony's Primary School, Craigavon; Parkhall College, Antrim; and St. Brigid's College, Londonderry This is the first time a schools initiative to promote sustainable modes of transport has been undertaken in Northern Ireland. Measures at the six schools are mainly exploratory and at different stages of development. The overall aim is to assist each school in developing a travel plan, which sets out a package of measures for reducing the number of car trips made to school. Where appropriate, Roads Service will subsequently introduce improvements to the roadway, such as installing pedestrian facilities and traffic calming measures, to facilitate children who may want to walk, cycle or use public transport. Additionally, other measures such as cycle shelters and lockers are provided by the Department of Education inside the schools premises. To get the school travel initiative started, Roads Service and its partners have spent nearly £85,000 over the last three years to investigate existing infrastructure and facilities at the schools, examine accident data, undertake surveys to establish baseline school travel information, and pay for the training of a Travel Plan Co-ordinator who was appointed to champion the initiative in the schools. No specific funding has been allocated as yet for the further development of travel plans, as resources are being concentrated for the time being on the pilot group of six schools. However, it is intended, as part of the next stage of the initiative, to develop a practical support package that encourages other schools to engage in the travel plan process. The improvements to the infrastructure and facilities at each of the pilot schools will be completed early in 2005. While we will undertake a preliminary assessment of how successful these measures have been during the latter part of 2005, initial work including installation of cycle shelters at the schools has had very positive results and generated an increase in cycling among pupils. It is anticipated that the planned infrastructure work to the road network adjacent to the schools should have equal effect in facilitating and encouraging more children to use sustainable modes of transport.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

425 c239-40W; 189671

Session

2003-04

Subjects

Finance Pilot schemes Northern Ireland Schools Transport Road traffic Safety measures

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk