Road Traffic: Schools

Mrs. Villiers
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many of her officials are working on proposals to reduce the traffic generated by the school run.

Ms Rosie Winterton
The development of proposals to reduce the traffic generated by the school run does not fall into neat boxes that enable us to identify exactly how many officials are engaged on this. There are four officials who do work on reducing car use for journeys to and from school, mainly through the joint DfT/DCSF ‘Travelling to School’ project, in the Department's sustainable travel initiatives team. Additional work to promote and facilitate walking and cycling to school is done by the six officials working in the Department's walking and cycling team and by Cycling England, an independent body set up by the Department in 2005 to promote cycling. In addition, officials in several other teams across the Department work on the development of proposals that have a direct impact on parents' decisions as to whether or not to let their children travel to and from school by non-car modes. They include people engaged in road safety, traffic management, buses, and local and regional transport policy.

In addition, and as part of their joint ‘Travelling to School’ project, DfT and DCSF are providing sufficient funding for local authorities to employ around 250 school travel advisers who work with schools to help them develop and implement school travel plans, which are seen as the key strategies for reducing car use for journeys to and from school. The school travel advisers are supported by a network of 11 regional school travel advisers.