Increasing car dependency of children: Should we be worried?

Abstract

Children are becoming increasingly dependent on the car. This is occurring because of the complexity of modern life and the resulting shortage of time which often means that a child is taken to school by car, sometimes as part of a longer trip. Many parents are concerned about the safety and security of their children. The weather also plays a key role. This increasing car use by children has several implications: children lose opportunities to gain road-based skills and independence from their parents; they lose some social opportunities; parental time is spent taking children by car; there is extra traffic on the road, particularly during the morning peak; children will have a reduction in their physical activity, which has health implications; and, they may grow up with little or no experience of using alternatives to the car. This will have significant adverse impacts on future policies aimed at reducing car use. The situation is likely to worsen. Car ownership will increase further, with a greater increase in households with children than those without. Car use by children is likely to increase considerably. This is a very worrying trend.

Full text

Increasing car dependency of children: should we be worried?
R. L. Mackett
Children are becoming increasingly dependent on the car.
This is occurring because of the complexity of modern life
and the resulting shortage of time which often means that
a child is taken to school by car, sometimes as part of a
longer trip. Many parents are concerned about the safety
and security of their children. The weather also plays a
key role. This increasing car use by children has several
implications: children lose opportunities to gain road-
based skills and independence from their parents; they
lose some social opportunities; parental time is spent
taking children by car; there is extra traffic on the road,
particularly during the morning peak; children will have a
reduction in their physical activity, which has health
implications; and, they may grow up with little or no
experience of using alternatives to the car. This will have
significant adverse impacts on future policies aimed at
reducing car use. The situation is likely to worsen. Car
ownership will increase further, with a greater increase in
households with children than those without. Car use by
children is likely to increase considerably. This is a very
worrying trend.
1.INTRODUCTION
Increasing car use by children is causing concern. This was
reflected in the Government’s White Paper on Transport
1
issued
in the summer of 1998 which stated (paragraph 5.29): ‘Not
walking or cycling to school means that children get much less
exercise and builds in car dependency at an early age.’
1
The use of cars by children and young adults is important
because experience of, and attitudes towards, transport
acquired whilst young may influence future behaviour. A
survey by Lyons
2
of 479 school children found that not only
are many children taken to school by car, but also that most
of them intend to learn to drive and own cars as soon as
possible. Mackay
3,4
studied the travel patterns of 16 to 18-year-
olds by carrying out detailed unstructured interviews with 49
of them. She also found that they were very car dependent,
and concluded that learning to drive is perceived as a major
element in the transition to adulthood for many
teenagers.
The objective of this paper is to examine the evidence that
children are walking and cycling less, and that they are
becoming increasingly dependent on the car. The reasons for
these trends are considered and the implications for children
and the possible impacts on future travel demand are discussed.
The paper concludes with examination of some actions that
could be taken.
2. WALKING AND CYCLING BY CHILDREN
Table 1 shows the modes of transport used by children for all
trips, based on data from the National Travel Survey (NTS)
which is a survey of randomly selected households in Great
Britain. It can be seen that walking has declined from 47% of
trips to 37%, and that cycling has halved. Travel by bus and
coach has also declined significantly. It is clear that the major
shift has been to the car, which has increased from 35% to 51%
of trips over a period of about 15 years.
The major decrease in cycling is confirmed by Table 2. It can be
seen that boys cycle much more than girls do, particularly older
boys. It is interesting to note that there was a large decline in
the amount of cycling by younger children in the period 1975/
76 to 1985/86, particularly for boys, so that they now cycle
about as much as girls of the same age. For older children the
decline was later, after 1985/86. By 1998/2000, older boys were
still cycling more than other children, and much more than the
national average, but with a very rapid rate of decline. The rate
Proceedings of the Institution of
Civil Engineers
Municipal Engineer 151
March 2002 Issue 1
Pages 29^38
Paper 12763
Received 01/11/2001
Accepted 11/12/2001
Key wo rds :
tran spo rt plannin g/social impa ct Roger Mackett
Professor of Transport
Studies, Centre for
Transport Studies,
University College, London
Travel mode 1985/86 1998/2000
Walk 47 37
Bicycle 4 2
Bus and coach 11 7
Car 35 51
Other 3 3
Total 100 100
Table 1. Percentage of trips by each mode of travel by
children aged less than 176;7
Category 1975/76 1985/86 1998/2000
Boys age 5^10 32 16 16
Boys age 11^17 226 207 126
Girls age 5^10 18 14 16
Girls age 11^17 56 56 22
All persons 51 44 38
Table 2. Bicycle travel in miles per year7
Municipal Engineer 151 Issue 1 Children’s car dependency Mackett 29

of decline for girls was even more rapid, but was at a lower
level in 1985/86, and had reached 22 miles a year by 1998/
2000, a figure not much higher than that for younger children.
It is noticeable that by 1998/2000, older girls were cycling less
than the overall average which was not the case in 1975/76.
These declines may be due to concern about road safety and
personal security. They may also reflect changes in fashion:
children are very sensitive to comments from their peers about
their actions. If children regard cycling as unfashionable and an
activity they would not like their friends to see them under-
taking, they will stop, however irrational that may be.
Dixey
5
looked at the travel modes used by a total of 1801
primary-school children living in three areas in Leeds, and
found an interesting difference between the preferences of the
children and parents. The children, particularly the boys, were
keen to cycle, but few parents shared this view. Overall, the
parents were keen on a small shift to car and bus. Both parents
and children were keen on a shift away from walking.
In order to understand this shift away from walking and
cycling by children, it is necessary to examine the role of the
car.
3. THE US E OF THE CAR BY CHILDREN
It is widely recognised that car use is increasing, and that this
has serious implications for the environment and the use of
scarce resources. Table 3 shows how the percentage of trips by
car has increased both for the total population and for children.
It can be seen that in 1964, 32% of all trips were by car. By
1985/86 this had increased to 50%, and by 1997/99 this had
increased further to 65%, implying that almost two-thirds of
trips are by car. Children make fewer trips by car than the
whole population, but it is clear that they are following the
same trend: between 1964 and the present, car use by children
has increased from less than 20% of trips to almost half.
When the distance travelled is considered, the dominance of the
car is even clearer. Back in 1964 just under half the total
distance travelled by the whole population was by car; by
1997/99 it was over three-quarters, as shown in Table 4.
Children have followed the same upward trend, with 70% of
their current travel by car.
As Table 5 shows, trips to and from school form a minority of
trips for children and this appears to be decreasing. By 1997/99
they had fallen to little over one-third of trips. When distance is
considered, travelling to and from school is an even smaller
proportion of children’s travel, as shown in Table 6. It can be
seen that less than one-fifth of children’s travel is to and from
school. This is rather surprising in light of the statement from
the White Paper on Transport
1
quoted in section 1. This means
that focusing attention on school trips may mean that policies
to reduce children’s car use will have relatively little impact. It
is understandable why attention is focused on the journey to
school: it is regular whereas non-education trips are much more
diverse in time and space. It is relatively easy to provide
alternatives for the journey to school, and local government in
the form of schools already has an involvement in and some
responsibility for these trips. Trips outside school are the
responsibility of parents and they may have very different
priorities to the Government.
As Table 7 shows, car use is much higher for non-education
trips than for education trips. Between 1985/86 and 1997/99,
car use to school almost doubled, from 16% to 30% of trips. For
other trips, car use was much higher in 1985/86 than it had
reached by 1997/99 for education trips. By 1997/99, car use
had reached 56% for non-education trips. This is fairly close to
the figure of 65% of trips by the whole population by car, as
shown in Table 3.
Thus, it can be seen that there has been a huge increase in the
use of the car to take children to school, reflecting the concern
implied by the quotation in section 1, but, in fact, these are a
minority of children’s trips. Most travel by children is to other
activities and well over half of these trips are by car, and this is
increasing. This has, almost certainly, contributed to the decline
in walking and cycling by children.
Category 1964 1985/86 1997/99
All 32 50 65
Children 19 31 47
The data for 1964 are for stages, but 93% of trips were single
stage.
For 1964 children are aged 3^15; for 1985/86 and 1997/99
they are aged 5^16.
Table 3. Percentage of trips that are by car6;8;9
Category 1964 1985/86 1997/99
All 46 71 78
Children 37 64 70
For 1964 children are aged 3^15; for 1985/86 and 1997/99
they are aged 5^16.
Table4.Percentageofdistancetravelledthatisbycar
6;8;9
Trip purpose 1985/86 1997/99
Education 39 35
Other 61 65
All 100 100
Table 5. Percentage of trips for each purpose by children
aged 5^166;9
Trip purpose 1985/86 1997/99
Education 21 19
Other 79 81
All 100 100
Table 6. Percentage of distance travelled for each purpose by
children aged 5^166;9
30 Municipal Engineer 151 Issue 1 Children’s car dep endency Mackett

4. WHY ARE CHILDREN TRAVELLING BY CAR SO
MUCH ?
One factor that strongly influences car use is car ownership. As
Table 8 shows, car use to school by children is much higher in
households with cars. Presumably children in non-car-owning
households travelling by car are being given lifts by other
parents: these figures are low, but increasing fast. It may well
be that in many of the households with one car, the child uses
an alternative because the car is being used for commuting,
but when a household owns two or more cars, there may well
be cases when a parent who works part-time or is not
employed, makes a car trip especially to take children to
school. There may be households where taking the children to
school is a major factor in deciding to own more than one
car.
Black
12
examined the factors influencing the choice of mode
for children in infant schools in south-east Hampshire and the
Stoke/Crewe region (3333 responses in the former, 881 in the
latter). He investigated the reasons why the car was used for
taking children to school and found that the most common
reason was ‘poor weather’, followed by the need to save time,
the distance from school, and the comfort offered by the car.
Black found that parents who used the car cited reasons such as
‘safety’ and ‘danger from strangers’ as reasons to use a car for
this purpose much more than parents who walked their children
to school. Black
12
found that 37% of parents taking their
children to school by car were combining this journey with the
journey to work, and another 9% were combining the journey
with another trip to school or nursery. Of those who usually
returned home after driving to school, the vast majority said
that they sometimes combined the school trip with other
journeys, usually shopping.
Bradshaw
13
carried out surveys at four schools in north Leeds,
covering a total of 426 children and 144 parents. She found
that 60% of parents who drove their children to school carried
on to work, and argues that the only way to make the children
transfer to other modes would be to make the parents switch to
other modes.
It is interesting to compare the reasons found by Black with
those in the Lex Motoring Report for 1998 reporting on a
survey of 1287 car drivers.
14
When asked the reason for using
the car to take children to school, the commonest reason cited
was ‘quicker than other means’ cited by 29%, followed by ‘too
far to cycle or walk’, cited by 24%. Some 15% said that the
school was en route to a further destination, and an additional
5% said that they had to take other children to school. A total
of 12% were concerned about safety and a further 12% said
that the children were too young. There is some overlap here
with the factors influencing car use cited by Black.
12
In each
case it seems that a large proportion of the trips could be
undertaken by other modes, which would take longer, but for
quite a large number of parents there are two major factors:
first, taking the children to school is part of a complex journey;
second, parents have a fear about the safety of their children,
both from strangers and road vehicles. As Black
12
points out, it
is ironic if parents are taking their children to school by car in
order to protect them from the cars on the road.
In 1999 a national survey of 476 car-owning households with
one or more child aged 5–15 was carried out by the University
of Westminster.
15
The response to a question about car use for
the journey to school is shown in Table 9. This also shows the
importance of convenience and time saving, and that many
children are dropped off at school in the course of another
journey by car. Safety and security were also important factors
for some parents.
One factor that influences mode choice for the journey to
school is the increasing distance between home and school,
partly caused by the general process of decentralisation, which
is strongly influenced by increasing car use, but also caused by
the policy of increasing parental choice of school. Table 10
Transport mode Education Other All
1985/86 1997/99 1985/86 1997/99 1985/86 1997/99
Car 16304056 3147
Other 84706044 6953
All 100 100 100 100 100 100
Table 7. Percentage of modal choice for children for trips by various purposes6;9
No. of cars owned 1985/86 1995/97
014
11426
2+ 34 48
Table 8. Percentage of trips to school by car by children aged
5^16 for various levels of household car ownership10;11
Reason Percentage of all
who are driven
to school
Quicker/more convenient 38
On way to or from work 21
No other transport/no school transport 20
Weather 11
Safer 9
Too far to walk 7
Too young to go to school alone 4
Pick up others 2
Other 6
Table 9. Reasons for car use (the respondents were invited to
give as many answers as they wished, hence the total is more
than 100%)15
Municipal Engineer 151Issue 1 Children’s car dependency Mackett 31

shows the trend in average trip lengths to and from school. For
both young and older children, the mean separation between
home and school doubled between 1985/86 and 1998/2000. Of
course, the increasing availability of cars has enabled many
parents to take their children to more distant schools, reflecting
the greater range of opportunities that ownership of a car
bestows.
The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
commissioned research into the factors that have influenced the
increase in the school journey length.
16
It was concluded that
the three main factors were the increase in car ownership,
patterns of women’s working and childcare arrangements, and
schools’ admission policies.
As previously mentioned, one of the concerns of parents for
their children is road safety. Table 11 shows the relative
accident rates for three modes commonly used by children
(equivalent figures for bus and coach travel are not available).
It can be seen that children travelling by car are much safer
than those who walk or travel by bicycle, which suggests that
parents who regard the car as much safer for their child are
correct. However, the accidents in which child pedestrians and
cyclists are killed or seriously injured are, in general, with cars
and other motor vehicles. In other words a parent taking his or
her child by car may be reducing the risk to that child, but
increasing it for other children. Hence the solution to this
problem is not for more children to travel by car, but for them
to be taught pedestrian and cycling skills, and for further
measures to be taken to reduce the number of possible conflicts
between cars and child pedestrians and cyclists.
The reasons cited above might be regarded as rather limited as
they do not address broader issues concerned with, for example,
lifestyle choices and they reflect what parents are willing to
admit. They do not include cases where children are reluctant
to walk. For example, in a study of the potential for car users to
switch to alternatives for short trips (less than 5 miles) carried
out in the Centre for Transport Studies at UCL,
18
the following
example illustrates the point: a woman from Leeds aged 34
said, ‘I don’t walk because Jonathan is a bit grumpy and I have
virtually to drag him.’ The same respondent illustrated a very
important factor why people tend to use their cars to take
children to school, namely the shortage of time. She said: ‘If I
walk both ways I don’t have much time at home to do jobs
before I have to go back again for Jonathan. I do sometimes
walk in the summer when the weather is nice.’
Two more examples illustrate how the complexities of family
life cause people to use the car, taking their children with them.
Another woman in Leeds said:
‘We could have walked if we’d had more time, but we nipped there
quickly whilst my other daughter was having a guitar lesson. The
Blue Pineapple has some good value cards and presents and my
daughter wanted to choose them herself.’
A woman living in London made a journey which included
taking her child to school, shopping and personal business. Her
reasons for using the car were multiple:
‘I could walk to the video shop, but it is hard work with a pushchair
so I don’t do it. I don’t like public transport for short journeys: it’s
too difficult with children. I need the car to carry the shopping. I do
my own shopping because I like to browse. I would get delivery
service but I rarely know what I want until I’m in the shop.’
The empirical evidence on the reasons why so many children
are taken to school by car suggests that it is to do with the
complexity of modern life and the resulting shortage of time:
this often means that the child is dropped off at school in the
course of a longer trip. Many parents are also concerned about
the safety and security of their children which means that they
wish to escort their children to school, but the time pressures
on their lives make walking impractical. It is much quicker and
more convenient to use the car. The weather also plays a key
role for some parents: if it is raining they want to save their
children from getting wet unnecessarily. Similar factors will
influence modal choice for non-education trips, particularly in
the evening when parental concern for their child’s security
may be heightened (and there may be no public transport
alternative, particularly late at night).
5. THE IMPLICATIONS OF INCREASING CAR USE BY
CHILDREN
The increasing use of the car to take children to school is
reflected in the decreasing proportion who travel to school
alone, as shown in Table 12. It can be seen that by 1998/2000,
only 12% of children aged 5–10 travelled alone and 39% of
older children did so. This reduces their opportunities to learn
skills associated with travelling alone, such as decision-making
Age group 1985/86 1998/2000 % change
Age 5^10 1˝1 2˝3 +109
Age 11^16 1˝5 3˝0 +100
Table 10. Average length of trips to and from school in miles7
Description Walk Bicycle Car passenger
Total number of children killed or seriously injured>1999 3457 950 1306
Mean number of trips per year by children under 17>1998/2000 332 18 458
Ratio of number of children killed or seriously injured to the mean number
of trips per year per child 10 53 3
The pedestrian and pedal cycle figures refer to children aged under 16; the car passenger and trip figures refer to children under
17
Table 11. Casualty rates for children by mode.7;17
32 Municipal Engineer 151 Issue 1 Children’s car dep endency Mackett

about road safety procedures. Hillman et al.
19
found that the
proportion of children allowed to walk to school alone in the
UK is 35% compared with 91% in Germany.
One aspect of children being taken to school is the growth in
the number of education escort trips being made—that is, trips
being made just to take children to school. As Table 13 shows,
there has been a 50% increase in the number of education
escort trips made between 1985/86 and 1998/2000, and the
distance travelled has more than doubled over this period. Most
of the distance travelled (63 out of 96 miles in 1998/2000) is by
car drivers. While this type of trip is not a huge proportion of
the 1030 annual trips per year made by the average person in
1998/2000, it is high for specific sectors, particularly women
aged 30–39 who make 15% of their trips taking children to and
from school.
7
In the study of the use of the car for short trips carried out at
the Centre for Transport Studies at UCL
18
it was found that for
escort-to-school trips more transport alternatives were available
than for any other type of car driver trip (see Table 14). This
implies that this is the type of trip for which there is greatest
potential to encourage use of alternatives. It should be noted
that the trips were by car drivers, so education trips are only
those where the child drove him or herself. There were not
many of these, so they were aggregated with trips back to
home. Major reasons why the car was used by those taking
children to school were the shortage of time and the need to
use the car to make a further trip, confirming the results from
the surveys cited in the previous section. Of the alternatives
identified, walking was the most popular (cited for 41% of the
trips), followed by bus (cited for 37% of trips). (These compare
with 31% for each of these alternatives for all trips considered
together.)
One observable effect of increasing car use to take children to
school is the corresponding increase in traffic. As can be seen
from Table 15, during the period 08.00 to 08.59, about 10% of
traffic on the road consists of cars being used to take children
to school. This has increased steadily over the years. At the
busiest time, which is 08.35, 14% of traffic is taking children to
school. School traffic peaks slightly later at 08.50, when it
forms 16% of traffic. It has decreased slightly in the past three
years, implying some spreading over time, possibly because of
the high levels of congestion.
An important area of concern about children’s increasing car
use is the attendant reduction in their physical activity. This
can lead to health problems, either in childhood or in later life.
The following health benefits from increased physical activity
have been identified.
20,21
(a)Reduced risk of heart disease and stroke. An active lifestyle
in childhood may lead to a reduction in the risk factors
related to coronary heart disease and the likelihood of
having a stroke in later life.
(b)Reduced risk of obesity. Many children in Britain are
overweight; young people who are obese are more likely to
become obese adults, which leads to increased risk of heart
disease, diabetes and joint problems.
(c)Reduced risk of osteoporosis. Physical activity promotes
healthy bones in young people and prevents osteoporosis
(which is the loss of bone mineral density) in adulthood.
(d)Enhanced mental health and quality of life. Physical
activity can enhance psychological well-being and mood,
and reduce symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety.
Physically inactive children are likely to suffer from low
self-esteem and may lack confidence in their ability to
perform tasks requiring physical activity. Furthermore,
walking and cycling can make children aware of their local
Age group 1985/86 1998/2000 Percentage
change
Age 5^10 21 12 43
Age 11^16 46 39 15
Table 12. Percentage of children travelling to school alone7
Description 1985/86 1998/2000 Percentage
change
Trips per person per year 32 48 +50
Miles per person per year 45 96 +113
Table 13. Education escort trips per year by the average
person7
Category of trip Alternative
available No alternative
available
Work 70 30
Business 61 39
Shopping 79 21
Escort to school 92 8
Other escort 79 21
Personal business 78 22
Social 76 24
Change mode 82 18
Home and education 81 19
Total 78 22
Table 14. Percentage of short car trips for which alternatives
to the car are available18
Description 1989/91 1992/94 1995/97 1998/2000
08.00 to 08.59 hours 7 9 10 10
Peak traffic time (08.35) 8 10 13 14
Peak percentage (08.50) 14 15 20 16
Table 15. Cars taking children to school in urban areas during term time (percentage of car traffic)7
Municipal Engineer 151Issue 1 Children’s car dependency Mackett 33

environment, help them to develop road sense, assess risk
and become more self-reliant.
Another potential danger of increasing car use by children
which has been alluded to earlier is that they may become
completely dependent on the car for all their travel. Currently,
70% of their travel is by car and they are walking and cycling
less and less. There must be many children who travel only by
car and have no experience of the alternatives. Their whole
lifestyle, like that of their parents, is dependent on having a car
available. If a car were not available they would be unable to
continue with the full range of their activities. If they are so
dependent on the car when they are young, it seems extremely
unlikely that they will be any less car-dependent when they
become adults. In a few years there will be many young adults
who cannot think of surface travel in any terms except the car.
That will have significant adverse impacts on any policies
aimed at reducing car use.
22
6. THE FUTURE
This heavy usage of the car by children raises two main
concerns. First, if they are using the car to such a great extent
before they can drive and have cars of their own, what is going
to happen when they have access to a car within their own
control? Second, such heavy use of the car may mean that they
do not have much experience of the alternatives, so that if it is
thought desirable for policy reasons to encourage them to use
alternatives in later life, this may prove very difficult.
One way to consider the future behaviour of children is to
examine the present behaviour of adults. As Table 16 shows,
most people never cycle and very few are frequent cyclists.
Only 8% of the population cycle three or more times a week,
while over 70% do not cycle. Interestingly, the latter figure is
falling, suggesting that an increasing number of people are
cycling occasionally. The table also shows that many people do
not use local buses: by 1998/2000 the figure had reached 43%,
with only 18% of the population using the bus three or more
times a week. This is important because if people have no
recent experience of a specific form of transport they are
unlikely to consider that form as an alternative to the car. It
seems likely that future generations will have even less
experience of the alternatives than adults do at present, given
their increasing use of the car as children.
There is little doubt that the major factor underlying the
increase in car use is the growth in car ownership. This
relationship underlies the National Road Traffic Forecasts
(NRTF).
23
The 10 Year Plan for Transport
24
which complements
and in some places supersedes the 1998 White Paper on
Transport, uses forecasts based on the NRTF. Table 17 shows
that the mean number of cars per household is forecast to
increase by 17% by 2031. However, for households with
children, the forecast growth is 30% over this period.
The trend is emphasised by Table 18 which shows the forecast
increase in the number of households with different levels of car
ownership, and Table 19 which shows the equivalent for
households with children based on calculations using data from
NRTF. Table 18 also shows the equivalent figures from the
National Travel Survey for 1985/86 and 1995/97. The NRTF were
based on NTS data for 1991/93. It can be seen that the NRTF
forecasts for 1996 are very close to the NTS values for 1995/97.
The data also show that the existing trends are expected to
continue, but at a slightly lower rate of growth, reflecting the
approach to ‘saturation’ levels of car ownership. Assuming that
the figures in Table 19 for
households with children can
be regarded with the same
degree of confidence as the
overall NRTF figures, the pro-
portion of households with
children and that have no car
is forecast to decline to 11%
by 2031, and the proportion
with two or more cars is
predicted to have increased to
over 50%.
If the increases in car owner-
ship implied in Table 19 are
applied to the figures on car
use to school in Table 8, there
would be an increase of 29%
in the share of trips to school
by car, so that it would reach
39%, compared with the 30%
currently, shown in Table 7.
An equivalent increase for
non-education trips would
bring the figure up to 72%
compared with the present
56%. It should be borne in
mind that car trips tend to be
longer than other trips, so the
Frequency Bicycle Local bus
1989/91 1998/2000 1989/91 1998/2000
Threeormoretimesaweek 8 8 19 18
Less than once a year or never 79 71 38 43
Table 16. Frequency of use of bicycles and local bus by the whole population of Great Britain7
Category 1996 2031 Percentage change
All households 0˝98 1˝15 +17
Households with children 1˝19 1˝55 +30
Table 17. Forecast of number of cars per household25
Description 1985/86 1995/97 1996 2016 2031
0 cars 38 31 31 23 21
1 car 45 45 43 35 30
2+cars 1725264249
Total 100 100 100 100 100
Source NTS NTS NRTF NRTF NRTF
Table 18. Forecasts of household car ownership6;7;25
34 Municipal Engineer 151 Issue 1 Children’s car dep endency Mackett

increase in car’s share of total travel by children would be
much higher. It should also be recognised that this assumes that
the current levels of car use for given levels of car ownership
will stay constant. As was shown in Table 8, car use for taking
children to school is increasing quite rapidly for given levels of
car ownership for the reasons cited in section 4.
It must be recognised that these calculations are very crude,
and are based on NRTF, which are likely to be subject to error.
However, even allowing for quite large errors, it seems very
likely that the levels of car use by children will increase. There
is no evidence that they will slow down within the foreseeable
future. This has serious implications for traffic on the roads and
for health, as discussed in section 5. It also means that it is
going to be difficult to encourage use of the alternatives
because there must now be many children growing up who
have no experience of the alternative modes.
7. WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?
As has been shown in section 2, car use in Britain is growing
rapidly. It has also been shown that children are following the
same trend. It seems very likely that they will have much
higher levels of car use when they grow up than adults do at
present. This has serious implications for congestion, use of
scarce resources, atmospheric pollution and health. Techno-
logical change can alleviate some of these problems, but it
cannot solve all of them.
A number of policies are being introduced in Britain to reduce
car use, such as congestion charging, which should reduce car
use in general, and so reduce car use by children to some
extent. More importantly, revenue raised by such schemes can
be invested in improving transport facilities, including those for
public transport, walking and cycling and these are likely to
benefit children if they use such modes. This seems to be part of
the problem: just as it was shown that many adults do not use
some transport alternatives, such as the bus or bicycle, many
children must be in the same position. Indeed, there may be
children who have no experience of cycling, walking alone or
using the bus. If this is so, they may grow up never doing some
of these things, having always been taken by car. They are very
unlikely to use these modes as adults if they have no
experience from childhood; therefore, there is a need to
encourage children to use these other forms of transport. One
way to do this is through schemes such as pedestrian skills
training and cycling proficiency schemes. Many of these
schemes are provided by local authorities in association with
schools. Such schemes are often outcomes of School Travel
Plans, which many schools are producing.
While the types of schemes mentioned above may help
introduce children to the alternatives to the car, it is essential
that parents follow up these activities or the benefits will soon
be dissipated. These means that parents need to be made aware
of the need to encourage children to use the alternatives, for
example by using publicity campaigns to make parents aware
of the health benefits of walking and cycling, and by improving
the facilities to use the alternatives, such as better street
lighting and wider pavements. A major problem is that parents
are worried about letting their children travel alone, because of
concerns about road safety and possible dangers posed by
strangers. This is a difficult area, because it requires parents to
be made more confident about letting their children out alone,
and the confidence can be broken by a single rare incident
reported widely in the newspapers. Providing walking and
cycling facilities which look safe to parents, plus facilities such
as mobile phones and ‘safe houses’ where children can go in an
emergency, can all help.
One area where efforts have been made to reduce children’s car
use is the journey to school. Davis
26
has reviewed a number of
successful projects to reduce the use of cars for travelling to
school, one of the best-known being the Sustrans’ demonstra-
tion projects to produce safer routes to schools. A specific
example is the Horndean Junior School in Hampshire, for
which ten route design schemes have been produced.
27
Many
local authorities are carrying out Safer Routes to School
projects. The results are being monitored nationally, but, so far,
there is only limited evidence on the success of the project;
nevertheless, there are some examples of reductions in the
number of school escort trips by car.
28
The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
(now the DTLR) has published a best practice guide to local
authorities on producing school travel plans.
29
The report is
accompanied by 30 case studies of schools that have under-
taken initiatives. There is little evidence of the effects of such
initiatives on the use of the car.
A comprehensive review of the levels of activity relating to
school travel initiatives has been carried out following a survey
of local authorities in England and Wales.
30
It was found that
nearly one-quarter of authorities had implemented or started a
school transport plan (STP) at one or more schools in their area,
and 44% had implemented or started school travel initiatives
(that is, individual measures that do not, on their own, amount
to an STP). The most common types of measures were
engineering measures (included in 86% of the school travel
plans), walking initiatives (82%) and educational initiatives
(79%). Cycling initiatives were included in about 60% of cases
and public transport in about 25%. Only about one-fifth of the
STPs were being monitored, but it is planned for a further 64%.
The report concludes that there is a growth in activity in this
field but that shortages of funding and staff time are limiting
the initiatives.
In West Sussex, at Hazelwick School in Crawley, pupils kept
travel diaries for the walk to school week and found that, on
average, their time in the car reduced by 60 minutes in the
week, on-bus time increased by 2 minutes, on-train time
increased by 4 minutes, and their walking time increased by
117 minutes.
31
In Camden, in north London, the local borough
has been working with the Royal School in Hampstead to
No. of cars owned 1996 2016 2031
0221511
1463731
2+ 32 48 58
Total 100 100 100
Table 19. Forecasts of car ownership for households with
children25
Municipal Engineer 151Issue 1 Children’s car dependency Mackett 35

reduce the impact of car use on the environment and on
people’s health.
32
The target set was to cut the number of pupils
travelling to school by car by 30% over three years. After two
years it has already been reduced by 25%.
Hertfordshire County Council
33
is bringing together a number
of initiatives under its Local Educational Access Route Network
(LEARN) package. The package has the objectives of reducing
the number of child casualties, reducing the number of car
journeys to school and providing sustainable transport modes,
and contains four projects: Safer Routes to School, Green
Transport Education, School Transport Plans, and Walk to
School. A pilot survey was carried out at two schools in St
Albans. At both schools the number of pupils travelling to
school by car decreased by about one third and the amount of
walking has increased. More recently, the first ‘Walking Bus’
scheme in Britain was started at Wheatfields School.
34
This is a
group of children following a designated walking route
escorted by two volunteer parents—one at each end. The
children push a trolley carrying their school bags and are
picked up at five stops including one lay-by where children
from an outlying village are dropped off by car. There are now
many walking buses in Britain.
It seems that these types of initiatives can, in some circum-
stances, bring about reductions in the number of children being
taken to school by car, and that a package of actions is
required, including education, publicity, and small-scale
engineering work to make walking and cycling routes safer.
One area where policy can help is in the allocation of school
places to children. In the public sector, some local authorities
use a formula to determine which children are allocated to
which school. One factor is the distance between home and
school. The weight put on this can be increased, which would
have the effect of reducing the average distance between home
and school, which should reduce the tendency to use the car for
some children. This would not have any effect in the private
education sector.
There has been a trend towards centralisation of facilities to
provide economies of scale, such as in hospitals and schools.
Such calculations do not take into account the costs associated
with users travelling to the facilities because such costs are not
borne by the bodies funding the facility. There should be an
explicit evaluation of all the costs, including the long-term
effects on travel behaviour, when such facilities are being
designed. This could well lead to spatial patterns of facilities
that are different to those currently in existence. It has to be
recognised that such an evaluation would be difficult, but that
is no justification for not attempting the exercise. Similarly,
when planning permission is sought by developers, the effects
on travel should include not just the short-run pattern of trips,
but the longer-term implications. The Department of Transport,
Local Government and the Regions
35
recognises these issues in
PPG13, which is the advice note to local authorities on
planning matters related to transport. It advises that new
schools should be located so as to maximise their accessibility
by public transport, walking and cycling; also that school travel
plans should promote safe cycle and walking routes, restrict
parking and car access at and around schools, and include on-
site changing and cycle storage facilities.
It is more difficult to identify specific actions that will help
reduce children’s car use for trips other than to school. If
children are made more aware of the benefits of using the
alternative modes for travelling to school, they may well use
the alternatives for other types of trip. Policies aimed at
reducing car use in general, such as congestion charging, may
well make parents less willing to take their children by car if
they have to pay extra cash to do so. As discussed previously,
the increasing use of the car to take children to school reflects
the increasing distance that children are travelling to reach
school. The greater dispersal of pupils around schools means
that children’s friends are likely to be distributed over a larger
area than in earlier years. This means that they are more likely
to be beyond walking distance. A reduction in the size of area
served by schools may have a consequential impact on the
distances that children travel for their social lives, and hence on
their use of the car.
8. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper it has been shown that both walking and cycling
by children are decreasing rapidly. A major reason for this is
the increasing use of the car. Children are following the same
upward trend in car use as the rest of the population. Currently,
70% of children’s travel is by car. The modal share of trips to
school by car has almost doubled over the past 15 years,
reaching 30% by 1997/99. Car use for non-education trips is
much higher at about 56% of trips. Education trips form only
about 35% of children’s travel.
A number of reasons for increasing car use by children can be
identified: increased car availability because of increasing car
ownership, increasing spatial separation between children’s
homes and their schools and social activities, modern lifestyles
and the associated pressures of time which make it easier to
take a child by car rather than walking, and increasing concern
about children’s road safety and security from strangers. These
factors tend to be mutually reinforcing in encouraging parents
to take children by car. Essentially, on many occasions there is
a car available, time is short, and the parent wishes to know his
or her child is safe: it is understandable why the car is used so
often.
Given that using the car makes sense from the household’s
perspective for many trips by children, it might be asked why it
matters. A number of reasons can be cited: children lose many
opportunities to gain skills such as decision-making about
road-safety procedures and independence from their parents;
they lose some opportunities to make new friends, for example
when walking from school; a lot of parental time goes into
taking children by car; there is extra traffic on the roads,
particularly during the morning peak; children will have a
reduction in their physical activity, which may have serious
implications for their long-term health; and finally, they may
grow up with little or no experience of using alternatives to the
car. This will have significant adverse impacts on future
policies aimed at reducing car use.
The situation is likely to worsen. Car ownership is expected to
continue to increase, with a greater increase in households with
children than those without. Car use by children is likely to
increase considerably. Given the reasons why this matters, as
outlined above, this seems to be a very worrying trend.
36 Municipal Engineer 151 Issue 1 Children’s car dep endency Mackett

A number of actions are being adopted to reduce car use to
school; for example, School Travel Plans, Safer Routes to
School projects, and walking buses. Changes in policies
regarding allocation of school places may in some cases help to
reduce school journey lengths, which in turn will facilitate the
use of transport alternative. It is more difficult to introduce
schemes to encourage the use of alternatives to the car for non-
education trips because the trips are so diverse, but there may
be a knock-on effect from the school trip initiatives: once
children have started to use the alternatives and realised the
benefits this gives them in terms of independence, they may
start to use the alternatives for other trips.
Summing up, it is clear that children are becoming more
dependent on the car, and that this has important implications
not only for the children themselves but also for society as a
whole, both now and in the future. While it is clear that some
initiatives are being taken, they tend to be focused on
education trips which in fact form only a minority of children’s
trips, and their is limited evidence of their effectiveness. There
is certainly a need for more monitoring and evaluation of the
success of such schemes. Overall, there seems to be very good
reason to be worried about the increasing car dependency of
children.
9. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper has been written as part of a project entitled
‘Reducing children’s car use: the health and potential car
dependency impacts’, funded by the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (Grant GR/N33638) at the Centre for
Transport Studies at University College London (see http://
www.ucl.ac.uk/transport-studies/chcaruse.htm on the world
wide web for further information).
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Please email, fax or post your discussion contributions to the secretary: email: kathleen.hollow@ice.org.uk; fax: +44 (0)20 7799 1325;
or post to Kathleen Hollow, Journals Department, Institution of Civil Engineers, 1^7 Great George Street, London SW1P 3AA.
38 Municipal Engineer 151 Issue 1 Children’s car dep endency Mackett