Cycling to school Bikeability report

The purpose of this report is to examine available data on the level of cycling to school since the introduction of the Bikeability cycle training scheme in England
during 2006/07.

The report draws on travel data from the school census and on Bikeability delivery data collected from local authorities that receive Department for Transport (DfT) cycle training grants.

This report provides insight into the potential impacts Bikeability cycle training may have had at a local level based on observed correlations between data sets.

Main conclusions
Overall, this report shows the level of children cycling to school in the last five years has remained stable. There have been small increases in the actual numbers of secondary school age children cycling to school between 2006 and 2011 across the UK. However, this has been almost matched by a very small decline in the proportion of primary school children cycling to school.

The relationship between Bikeability and the proportion of children cycling to school has been examined in a number of ways. Although no strong claims about causality can be made from this analysis, there are some encouraging indications that Bikeability is positively associated with higher levels of cycling to school.