How Is This
Calculated?

We know how pupils travel to the school from the Pupil Usual Mode Of Travel data that you collect from your pupils and enter and maintain on your school information management system. This gets collected once a year by your local authority, compiled into a single dataset for "all pupils at all schools", and then provided to us for the STHC analysis.

However since the removal of pupil usual mode of travel data from the National School Census by the Department for Education (DfE) in 2011, it is up to local authorities to:-

• decide they value the insight that pupil usual mode of travel data provides.
• mandate the schools under their control to contine collecting it from pupils and record it in their information management systems.
• make alternative arrangements to collect it from the information management system of all their schools.

As academy schools are autonomous and it is our understanding that the local authority will usually need to establish a formal data sharing agreement with each one before their pupil usual mode of travel data can be collected and compiled with other schools to create an "all pupils at all schools" to supply to us for analysis.

The pupil usual modes of travel supplied to us for analysis for for the school year are as follows:-

How Is This
Calculated? The starting point of the STHC spatial analysis is to calculate the straight-line ("as the crow flies") distance between the centre of a pupils home postcode area and the official addresspoint of the actual school they attend. In the STHC Output this is called the "Pupil Home – 'Actual' School Distance" or just "Actual Distance" for short. This represents the length of a single "school run" - the pupils journey from either home to school or back again.

Next we calculate the collective total travel distance for all pupils, from which we can then calculate the average distance travelled by each pupil.

We break these calculated distances down by Pupil Usual Mode of Travel. Users should keep a "weather eye" on stats for the journeys where the mode of travel is recorded as Unknown (UNK) in order to decide for themselves if they are statistically significant or not.

Click on the "How Is This Calculated?" button above to find out more.

The total and average pupil travel distances calculated by our analysis for all   schools for the school year are as follows:-

Note the differences in the proportion of pupils travelling by each mode versus the proportion of total distances they have collectively travelled. For example in the whole of % of pupils walk to school, but they account for only % of the  km total distance collectively travelled on each "school run".

Also note the differences between the average distances travelled for each mode. For example in as a whole the average length of journey is  km, but by Public Service Bus (PSB) it is km, whilst by Car / Van (CAR) it is km. How do the average journeys for your school differ?

Even if you did not submit Pupil Usual Mode of Travel data the spatial analysis can still provide useful information. How does the average length of pupil journey to your school compare to that for as a whole?

How Is This
Calculated? From the "Pupil Home – 'Actual' School Distance" figures calculated for each pupil by spatial analysis, it is then possible to determine which live within a realistic walking distance (the "Walk Threshold") of the school they actually attend. This is defined by us as 800m (0.5 miles) for age Primary age pupils (NCY R-6) and 2 km (1.2 miles) for Secondary age pupils (NCY 7-14).

If we have pupil usual mode of travel data for the school, we can also calculate which of those pupils are travelling by other modes, in particular by Car / Van, which gives rise to the Short Term STHC Sustainable Travel Indicator for the school.

The "Pupils Living Within Walk Threshold" calculated by our analysis for all   schools for the school year are as follows:-

The number of Pupils Living Within Walk Threshold indicates how well the school is located with respect to its pupils (and vice versa!). Several factors are involved in this - the 'rurality' of the school, how far pupils are willing to travel to get to it (by whatever means) etc. From a sustainable travel point of view there is little a school can do to change this metric if its' physical location means that there are few pupils (actual or potential) living nearby. Such situations are becoming more common as schools merge and a new campus is built on a new site.

What a school can do something about is influencing how the pupils that do live within a realistic walking distance travel to it. We call this a short term indicator as it is something that can be immediately tackled by the school if it chooses to do so with the help of the school travel professionals - awareness raising campaigns like Walk Once a Week (WOW), "Park & Stride" schemes, better cycling / pedestrian infrastructure etc. It is a concept that everybody can understand ("why are they not walking when it's such a short distance?"), and therefore buy into the idea of tackling. It is also something that can be easily and consistently measured so if the number decreases over time, it indicates that progress is being made in tackling the issue.

How Is This
Calculated? When we have Pupil Usual Mode of Travel data, we can convert the "Pupil Home – 'Actual' School Distance" into CO₂ emissions for those modes of travel involving motorised transport by using the official UK government Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors (click the "How Is This Calculated" button to find out more).

Note: Unknown (UNK) modes of travel are treated as Car / Van for CO₂ emissions purposes.

However total annual CO₂ emissions do not tell the whole story. In order to be able to meaningfully compare the school travel carbon footprint for your school with any other school, we need to calculate an overall annual average CO₂ emission per pupil for all pupils at the school (ie. not just those that travel by CO₂ emitting modes). That way we can compare "apples with apples". To that end we have devised Long Term STHC Sustainable Travel indicator by comparing the "per head" CO₂ emission with the authority average. The indicator is a simple traffic light value (Red, Amber or Green) depending on how the figure compares with the authority average.

The total and per pupil travel CO₂ calculated by our analysis for all   schools for the school year are as follows:-

CO₂ emissions are very much a longer term sustainable school travel indicator because, although the concept is fairly easy to understand - the further you drive the more CO₂ is produced - tackling the issue is not so straight forward. All forms of motorised travel emit CO₂. Yes some more than others theoretically on a per passenger basis, but a high proportion of pupils travelling by Dedicated School Bus (DSB) from a long distance away will produce a similar overall annual average CO₂ per pupil as a few coming by Car / Van (CAR) from not very far away.

Reducing total CO₂ emissions will require sustained action by the school community over a longer period of time, supported by continued STHC analysis resources.

How Is This
Calculated? The health and academic benefits of active travel to school are well known, so we also convert the "Pupil Home – 'Actual' School Distance" into calories burnt for those modes of travel not involving motorised transport by using the latest Calorie Conversion Factors from academic research (click the "How Is This Calculated" button to find out more).

As with the CO₂ emission we have calculated the average calories burned per pupil for all pupils at the school (ie. not just those that travel by walking and cycling) so we can compare "apples with apples", however we have not converted this into an STHC indicator.

The total and per pupil travel calories burned calculated by our analysis for all   schools for the school year are as follows:-

How Is This
Calculated? Another approach to reducing school travel carbon footprints is to reduce the total distance travelled by pupils. As we can't change where the pupils live, lets look at the school they actually attend - is it the nearest one they could possibly go to (given their national curriculum year group)? If not, what is, and how much "extra" distance are they travelling?

These questions are easily answered by the STHC as the spatial analysis process routinely deduces a pupils nearest eligible school and the distance to it, and compares that with the actual school they attend. This is yet another long term sustainable travel indicator, however again we have not yet made a formal STHC indicator out of it.

The pupils attending their nearest eligible school calculated by our analysis for all   schools for the school year are as follows:-

Pupils Attending Their Nearest School is again a very much longer term sustainable school travel indicator. The concept is fairly easy to understand - if pupils went to their nearest school then they wouldn't travel as far so there will be less CO₂ produced - but there is much more to it than just school travel distance. Viewed from the schools perspective this indicator quantifies the "attractiveness" of the school amongst the pupils that attend it. The bigger "the draw" of the school, the further parents will be willing to travel and the fewer the pupils for whom the school is their nearest. We have not put rated the indicator values against a traffic light system as there is no simple target to aim for. What would your school suggest?