As a result of the Department for Education unilaterally deciding to remove the Pupil Usual Mode of Travel data field from the National School Census in July 2011, the actual collection of pupil travel data from schools has become a major issue in most authorities. Even in authorities where the value of the data has been officially recognised and there has been a written commitment to go on collecting it centrally, sometimes the collection has not actually been carried out by the Education Data people for whatever reason. Along with the back-office administrative chaos that Academies bring, suddenly the idea of a Local Education Authority being able to provide us with data about all the schools in their authority seems quaintly old fashioned. We are therefore working with authorities to offer advice to aid the successful transition to a new central collection process. For those authorities where this data collection model is no longer tenable, we will adapt our processes to use PUMoT data collected by clients on a school by school basis eg. through the Modeshift STARS scheme.
Notes:
1. Travel Mode Data Values - Pupil Usual Mode of Travel data values currently reported in the STHC output are those defined by the Department for Education when it was collected as part of the National School Census from 2006 - 2011. These are (and have always been in our humble opinion :-) deficient in several ways. They are too London-centric (eg. there are separate codes for "Metro/Light Rail" (MTL), "London Underground" (LUL) and "National Rail" (TRN)), and do not fully reflect the mix of travel modes used by pupils across the country - for example there are no codes for travelling by "Scooter" or "Ferry". There are also no codes for "Park & Stride" or "Ride & Stride", which means that the data cannot track positive changes in travel habits happening within a school after such enabling intervention schemes have been put in place. We are therefore happy to adapt the STHC PUMoT data scheme in the future to more accurately reflect reality. If clients have already switched to alternative PUMoT data schemes eg. the Modeshift STARS scheme, our analysis process can easily be adapted to accommodate this.
| Mode of Travel | STHC Code | STHC Symbol |
|---|---|---|
| Walk | WLK |  | Cycle | CYC |  |
Car or Van | CAR |  |
Car Share | CRS |  |
Public Service Bus | PSB |  |
Dedicated School Bus | DSB |  |
Bus Type Not Known | BNK |  |
Taxi | TXI |  |
Train | TRN |  |
metro / Tram / Light Rail | MTL |  |
London Underground | LUL |  |
Other | OTH |  |
Unknown | UNK |  |