Evidence of the benefits of School Streets
Coventry City Council has collaborated with VivaCity to help us collect traffic data and monitor any changes to driver behaviour on all our School Streets projects.
Benefits of Modal Shift at Templar Primary School Street
The Templar Primary School on Templar Avenue was Coventry’s first School Street, introduced in February 2023 as an experimental traffic regulation order. In June, a decision was taken to make the scheme permanent from the start of the new school year in September 2024.
The School Streets restriction was introduced to improve road safety by reducing congestion and obstructive parking during school drop-off and pick-up times. This scheme aims to create a safer and more pleasant environment for children walking, cycling, or scooting to school, while also aiming to reduce air pollution.
VivaCity data has continuously been supporting the scheme through long term monitoring by providing evidence of the modal shift from polluting, motorised vehicles to more active modes.
This has enabled the Coventry council team to understand the impact that their school streets interventions have had on both vehicle and active travel flows, and consequently communicate effectively and proactively with all stakeholders.
The benefits of the scheme to date include a reduction of weekday traffic vehicular traffic including an increase in pedestrian activity as highlighted below.
The greatest decrease in vehicles occurred in the 8am-9am and 2pm-4pm periods, which most closely match the restriction periods; this equates to a 56% decrease in the 8am-9am window and 51% decrease in the 3pm-4pm window
Pedestrians walking on the school street increased by 30% (140 to 181, a 41 per hour increase) in the 8am-9am morning window, in the November/December periods when compared to June, despite weather likely being worse
The average daily weekday vehicle flow on the school street decreased from 207 to 155