School travel planning an engineer will love Lisa This project has enabled Moonee Valley council to take a more strategic approach to encouraging active travel to school across our municipality. I will talk about the context and outcomes of this work and Alice will discuss the methodology.

School travel in Moonee Valley Need: A more planned and coordinated approach to active travel program delivery Better integration with capital works program Opportunity: Better Moves Around Schools program introduced 2011/12, this included support for school travel plans Lisa Council has always encouraged walking and cycling to school and did participate and lead a number of programs Council asked - How could we better work with schools? adhoc approach was not as sufficient , regular request from schools, no process in place Which school should be addressed first? and on what basis? There was no data available regarding school travel, except for data on 2 secondary schools that we had previously completed school travel plans for. BMAS was introduced in 2011/2012 A program that brings schools and councils together to improve traffic, safety and parking management and encouraging walking, cycling and the use of public transport to and from schools.

School travel in Moonee Valley Project Objectives: Recommendations for school infrastructure improvements A capital works list for future budgets Audited walking and cycling routes and identified routes for each school Lisa We had the introduction of BMAS and Our Integrated transport strategy had actions due for completion that asked to investigate and identify the barriers that prevent students walking, cycling and catching public transport to encourage more children to walk and cycle to school That’s where Urbantrans came in….. Council engaged Urbantrans to 1. Identify safe walking/cycling routes to school and identify improvements of the urban design that surrounds them. 2. Identify current walking, cycling and public transport habits at each Moonee Valley school Urban trans were to provide Council with Survey report for each school surveyed Audit report including opportunities to improve existing signage and infrastructure and a capital works list for future budgets with the view of providing safe and accessible pedestrian facilities to accommodate all pedestrians As we progressed through the project it was identified their was a need to develop a priority list (which Alice will go into more detail later) and a central spreadsheet that could be used as a working document. Urban trans also identified one safe walking route per school and 3 cycling routes for 3 schools. The project was a big one and took quite a few months to complete … David will now go through the complete process and the project methodology…………. . Identification of at least one safe walking route for each school Identification of 3 safe cycling routes. Produce a report for each school summarising the above information, including maps with safe routes to school. At least one safe walking route for each school and safe cycling routes for two schools. To improve existing walking areas by creating a more attractive and walkable areas to and from school. Identify barriers that prevent students travelling independently. Encourage schools to develop a safe travel plan/ green travel plan.

Implementation of Actions Monitoring and Evaluation What we did Engagement Transport Audit Surveys Development of Plan Implementation of Actions Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinated assessment of school travel conditions and behaviours Lots of school engagement!! Alice School engagement critical. A large-scale project in this regard to coordinate audits and to implement travel surveys for all schools. Leveraging school engagement in active travel planning from a coordinated capital works program. Reciprocity

Transport environment audits Footpaths and crossings Street widths and design Vehicle parking conditions Cycle parking Public transport options Level and speed of traffic Observations of behaviours Interview crossing supervisors Alice What is there and what are people doing Vehicle parking conditions, Cycle parking, Public transport options, footpaths and crossings, street widths and design, level and speed of traffic, observations of behaviours And how, and how much – morning and afternoon, drop off and pick up. Local precinct, talking to crossing supervisors 40 schools What worked well: engineers with good people skills

Child surveys Different surveys to reflect ages of children: Prep – Year 2 Year 3 – 6 Secondary Surveys cover: Current mode of travel Travel preferences Key walking routes Identifiable barriers Suggestions for change Alice Different surveys to reflect ages of children: Prep – Year 2 Year 3 – 6 Secondary Surveys cover: Current mode of travel Travel preferences Identifiable barriers Suggestions for change

Parent surveys Travel decision making Influences upon that decision Identifiable traffic issues Assessment of child’s cycling ability Alice Travel decision making, Influences upon that decision Identifiable traffic issues, Assessment of child’s cycling ability Valuable to seek parent feedback, just very challenging to get reasonable response rates.

Results How children would like to travel How children travel to school How children would like to travel Alice An example of the survey results. Understanding current travel behaviours and identifying motivators for change

Results Alice Reporting Individual school results: School modal split, Home location maps (to assess active travel catchment for the school), Busiest streets to target capital works, Feedback on barriers to help guide school actions to support active travel. Identified first actions for school to deliver Separate results for Council – both the survey results and the site audits From these audits and surveys we developed assessment criteria for council to guide prioritisation of future school engagement and capital works

Rank priority works to maximise Assessment criteria to rank priorities Percentage of children: walking and cycling to school Being driven Catching public transport Parking conditions Separation of vehicles and pedestrians Traffic speeds Congestion Condition of footpaths Existing traffic calming infrastructure Rank priority works to maximise Active travel Safety Road use impact Alice From the suite of audits we identified assessment criteria to guide the council’s capital works prioritisation Active transport, Safety, Road use impact

Priority capital works list – and tracking Lisa This is the working spreadsheet of the list of issues identified , this has been completed for each school. As part of the BMAS program a Traffic engineer & myself will meet with the principal, we go through any current issues revisit the existing audit and survey. We also include any other issues that have been identified by our audit and may not have been relevant when the Urbantrans audits where completed. We add new issues that may have been identified by our engineers and we work with the school to put together a proposal to develop a School Travel plan – this is all captured on this working document.

Outcomes and next steps Increased participation in active travel: number of schools and number of children Strategic approach to capital works and school engagement Implemented priority list works, highlighting 3-5 schools per year. Streamlined day-today issues around schools. Questions? Lisa Project outcomes: increased participation in events and programs. Anecdotal: more children walking in previously ‘hard to reach’ schools (due to school culture of ‘status’ driving) Leveraging school engagement Each year we have a small budget to implement works from the school participating in the BMAS program including signage & linemarking works and the offer a mini grant to develop, implement and sustain a School travel plan. We provided the school survey report prepared by Urbantrans to each school this can be used as basis of their school travel plan … To date we have 5 schools that have completed School travel plans and are now being implemented, and 2 schools currently developing their School Travel plans Any larger capital works that are identified will go onto the capital works list for the following year for design then next year for construction - smaller capital works may get designed and constructed in the same year. This process has streamlined day-to day school issues. It has helped develop positive relationships with schools and when we are contacted by schools we now have a strategic approach. We can also give the school an approximate date that we will meet from the priority list and explain that issues will be addressed with a holistic approach, rather than fixing one small problem at a time. We are also finding we are gaining more buy in from schools to participate in events /programs to encourage students to walk, cycle and catch public transport. All this … encourage and increases Better Moves around our Schools! Thanks you for listening , any questions