Encouraging students in Surrey to cycle to school

This study aimed at understanding how to better encourage Surrey students to cycle to school.

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This study aimed at understanding how to better encourage Surrey students to cycle to school. We designed and evaluated two interventions offered in the summer prior to the start of secondary school. The first intervention is a cycling training course—Bikeability Level two—and the second is a cycling preparedness email campaign. We measure the effect of each intervention on parental confidence in their child’s skills and on cycling to school through a series of surveys administered before and after the interventions. The cycling training had a large significant effect on parental confidence and on cycling to school. The email campaign had a positive effect on parents allowing their children to cycle to school. 

The challenge:

Too few students in Surrey cycle to school. Encouraging cycling is a priority for Surrey in order to reduce congestion and pollution in the main transited areas. An initial survey conducted with Surrey parents showed that parental confidence in their children’s cycling ability is a key determinant of cycling to school. 

The solution:

We test two interventions offered to students in the summer prior to the start of secondary school:

  1. Bikeability Level two—a cycling training course aimed at improving the child’s cycling skills on quiet roads; and
  2. a cycling preparedness email campaign sent to parents containing practical information about cycling to school over six emails sent prior to the start of the school term.

The impact (including cost savings/income generated if applicable):

In the first trial, we found that the Bikeability Level two cycling training led to a statistically significant increase in parents’ confidence in their children’s cycling ability. Specifically, we found that parents become more comfortable with their children cycling on their own after they complete the training. On quieter roads, which is the focus of the cycling training, parental confidence improved by 40 per cent (16 points on a confidence scale from 0-to 100). The evaluation also showed there was a 100 per cent increase (12 percentage points) in cycling to school after the training and that there is a positive correlation between parental confidence and cycling to school. 

In the second trial, we found that the willingness of parents to allow their children to cycle to school increased after the cycling preparedness email campaign from 40 per cent after the Bikeability Level two training to nearly 80 per cent after the delivery of the email campaign. The evidence on the effect of the email campaign on actual cycling behaviour is less conclusive.

How is the new approach being sustained?

The Bikeability training is moving to an online booking system where they will be able to incorporate as part of their regular service a pre-and post-training questionnaire to help with delivery, feedback, and evaluation. They will also be able to incorporate it as a regular part of the service communication with parents after the training is completed and will be able to provide parents and students with practical information about cycling to school (such as the information provided with the cycling preparedness email campaign). 

Lessons learned:

The main lessons from the study are the following: 

  • Cycling training and email campaigns are effective interventions to improve parental confidence and willingness to allow children to cycle to school. They are promising ways of encouraging children to cycle to school. More research should be conducted on this topic. 

  • Recruitment into a study needs to be simplified and should not add additional steps or barriers for potential participants. It was hard to recruit participants for the study because the invitation to participate was separate from the registration for the cycling training and was distributed by the schools. 

  • When asking participants to complete multiple surveys, participants should be incentivised accordingly. There was a progressive drop off from survey to survey. 

Contact:

[email protected]