How to develop a School Travel Plan - resources and contacts

Advice and practical support

Our school travel plan co-ordinators offer advice and practical support to help you develop and implement your travel plan.

This support includes:

• Providing a free ‘Guide for Schools Preparing School Travel Plans’ and 'School Travel Plan (STP) Toolkit' on disc.
• Meeting with pupils, parents, staff and governors to outline the process.
• Helping design and interpret travel surveys.
• Attending working group meetings and providing direct support to your lead.
• Helping with the presentation of your document.
• Accessing possible sources of funding, expertise and training for example via the Safer Routes to School project and the Road Safety Section.
• Providing sources of curriculum materials and websites.

How to develop your plan

Step 1 - Establish a working group and a lead

The school needs to establish a working group to draft the travel plan involving staff, parent and community representatives. Consult pupils directly or through the School Council. Make use of an existing committee if one exists such as the Eco-Group or Safe School Group. The school should also designate a lead person who will draft the travel plan with the help of the school travel plan advisor.

Step 2 - Travel surveys and consultation

Use travel to school surveys to find out the views of parents and pupils. Discussion topics during the consultation process may involve; how main walking routes can be established, how children travel to school and key travel and road safety issues. Using the attached site assessments on this page will help you complete the first section of your plan titled 'General description of the school'.

Step 3 - Draft the travel plan

With the travel survey information, the group can make informed decisions about travel plan targets, initiatives and priorities. Be realistic and remember it is a working group, spread development tasks across all members and don’t try to do too much all at once. There may be disappointments and frustrations, but concentrate on the wins and remember it’s a long term campaign. See the School Travel Plan (STP) template and guidance attachments at the right of this page for an outline on drafting a School Travel Plan. Also attached to this page are example travel plans from several Shropshire schools.

Step 4 - publicise

Once the surveys have been undertaken, the group should aim to write the travel plan within three months, getting the document signed and adopted by the governing body. It is helpful to send a summary to parents and to put the travel plan on the school website. Travel plan initiatives should be promoted and successes reported by using communications such as the school newsletter.

Step 5 - monitoring and review

You will be able to act upon some parts of the travel plan quickly and in the first year, others may take longer. Any numerical targets such as to increase the numbers walking or cycling will need to be monitored. Monitor and review the travel plan annually and rewrite it every three years.

The following downloadable resources are free to schools:
Attached to this page: - sample travel plan guide and template, sample leaflets, lists of resources available to primary and secondary schools and a sample surveys for pupils, parents and staff.

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