Travel to school factsheet

This factsheet is compiled from data within the National Travel Survey 2014, the DfT’s key source of data for understanding school travel patterns. The factsheet summarises the latest results about how children travel to school based on data for England up to 2014, including

• 43% of parents of children aged 7-13 years accompany them to school as a result of fears over traffic safety.
• Only 44% of parents allow their 7-10 year olds cross roads alone, down from 58% in 2002.
• Walking is the most common mode of travelling to school. 46% of 5-10 year olds and 38% of 11-16 year olds walk to school. 46% of 5-10 year olds are driven to school but just 23% of 11-16 year olds travel to school in a car.
• Taking the bus is more popular than car for 11-16 year olds (29%) but only 5% of 5-10 year olds take the bus to school.

The long-term trends show that since 2003, the share of car has slightly increased and the share of walking has decreased for primary school children, while mode share has remained broadly stable for secondary school children.

The report also shows that for very short trips (under one mile) walking is the main mode of transport for both primary and secondary school children, while for longer trips (two miles or more) car is the dominant mode for primary school children, and bus the most common mode for secondary school children.