Between 07 and 11 September 2009, all of Scotland's school pupils will have the opportunity to take part in the second national Hands Up Scotland Survey - the largest and most comprehensive survey of travel-to-school behaviour.
The Hands Up Scotland Survey is a project delivered in partnership between Sustrans, the UK's leading sustainable transport charity, and School Travel Coordinators across all of Scotland's Local Authorities. It provides up-to-date information on how Scottish school children travel to and from school and is being undertaken for the second year.
The results of last year's first-ever Hands Up Scotland Survey were launched in May this year. They showed that more than half of all Scottish school children travel to school by active methods such as walking cycling and scooter - more than those who travel by car, bus or taxi. Last year's survey also showed that the number of Scottish children cycling and walking to school was higher than expected.
The Hands Up Scotland Survey has been devised to give an in-depth view of how children of different ages, from different schools, and from different areas of Scotland choose to travel to and from school. Over the last four years, with £10million of funding from the Scottish Government, Sustrans has been supporting the development and implementation of projects and initiatives to increase the number of children walking and cycling to school.
Taking part in the Hands Up Scotland Survey is simple. Pupils are asked in the classroom: 'How do you normally travel to school' and then indicate their mode of travel by raising their hands where applicable. Participating schools can choose any day of the survey week to collect the information from pupils, and those schools participating will be entered into a prize draw to win a visit from a stunt bike performance team.
The information from this year's Hands Up Scotland Survey will be used to identify where interventions have been successful in encouraging pupils to walk, cycle and use public transport, and highlight those regions and schools that need more support to give children the opportunity to make greener and healthier school travel choices. The Scottish Government in its Cycling Action Plan for Scotland (CAPS) has proposed using the annual Hands Up Scotland Survey to measure progress towards its stated goal of ten percent of Scots cycling by 2020.
William Methven, Sustrans' Manager for School Travel in Scotland, said: "We are urging all of Scotland's schools to take part in the second year of the Hands Up Scotland Survey. The information that we gain from the survey is invaluable in ensuring that both Sustrans and Local Authority School Travel Coordinators can continue to effectively tackle the school run by supporting young people to walk and cycle to school."
"The results from the first year of the Hands Up Scotland Survey were very encouraging. We were pleased to see that the work we are delivering in partnership with School Travel Coordinators having a positive impact on the way school children are travelling in Scotland. We now have a benchmark for all future work with schools, and the information collected this year will be incredibly useful in informing this."
"With childhood obesity, road safety issues and the impact of people's travel choices on climate change at the top of the agenda, it's crucial that we encourage and enable more young people to choose healthy, active and safe ways of travelling to school that also benefit the wider environment."
Chris Thompson, School Travel Coordinator at Moray Council, added: "We know that a lot of good things are happening around school travel at the moment, and pupils, parents and staff are achieving significant changes in travel behaviour. This national survey of school travel gives us the chance to underline that success with robust data and demonstrate not just the value of the work completed to date, but also point us towards future targets with greater certainty."
For further information about the Hands Up Scotland Survey please contact your local School Travel Coordinator or Paul Ruffles at Sustrans Scotland on: paul.ruffles@sustrans.co.uk.
A PDF copy of last year's first-ever Hands Up Scotland Survey can be found using the following link: http://tinyurl.com/l5ngbh. The news release that accompanied the launch of last year's first-ever Hands Up Scotland Survey can be can be found using the following link: http://tinyurl.com/meg5dn.
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