School travel plans

What is a school travel plan?

A school travel plan is a document which sets out a number of practical ways to reduce the number of car trips made to a school, to encourage more walking, cycling and public transport use and to improve safety on the school journey.

Why have a school travel plan?

Reducing car dependent travel will mean less congestion around the school, making the area safer for your children on their school journey. Other benefits include less pollution and the promotion of a healthier lifestyle. This will result in a cleaner, safer environment and fitter, more active pupils.

Schools with an approved travel plan will be eligible for a DfT or DCSF grant to fund improvements on the school site to encourage healthier and less polluting travel choices. See the documents table below about ideas for spending the funds.

How to get started

In the documents table below you can find the following information to help you get started:

• school travel plan action guide
• example school travel plan
• school travel plan template
• Dft quality assurance advice note

If you need more advice or information visit the surveys and questionnaires page for information, such as the 'hands up' survey, look at the different ideas on the resources page or contact us.

What next?

Once a travel plan is completed it needs to be submitted to the Sustainable Transport Team to be approved. Once approved its time to start implementing the plan. Below are some ideas to get more children walking, cycling and onto the bus and travelling to school safely.

Ideas to get children walking, cycling and catching the bus

• promoting walking, cycling and public transport in the school prospectus and newsletter
• setting up a walking bus
• rewards for walking, cycling and using public transport
• using our walking passport stamp and reward scheme
• taking part in walk to school and cycle to school weeks
• promoting 'park and stride'
• cycle training and permit scheme
• voluntary car lift share scheme
• walkwise training
• bikeability training
• road safety resource box (foundation and KS1)
• promote the PlymGo journey planning website
• lesson plans

Documents

To view these documents you might need to download some software. Visit our downloads page for more information.

	School travel plan action guide - a step by step guide to starting and creating a school travel plan. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 158KB
	Example school travel plan - an example of a school travel plan created by Widey Court Primary. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 1MB
	School travel plan template - submission template. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 926KB
	Dft Quality Assurance - school travel plan quality assurance advice note. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 120KB
	Ideas for spending - a document with ideas for what the school travel plan grant can be spent on. File format Adobe Acrobat (pdf) - 94KB