Active school trips: what happened after the recommendation?

The recommendation that children should cycle or walk to school received a lot of attention when presented in March 2023. But what happened next? “Behavioural changes take time,” says Malin Henriksson, one of the researchers behind the recommendation.

Yes, from a communication perspective, the project was a success. On 18 February last year, Dagens Nyheter published a debate article with the headline “Stop driving your children to school – health comes before fear”. The message was as clear as it was simple. When children start preschool classes, they should walk or cycle all or part of the way to school – initially with their parents, but eventually on their own.

The debate article was signed by researchers at VTI and the Luleå University of Technology (LTU) and a number of representatives of various organisations. And then things took off.

“Media from all over the country got in touch and published their own articles and features. This included TV, radio and large and small newspapers,” recalls Malin Henriksson, who was very pleased with the widespread media attention.

From the very beginning, the project was very much focused on reaching out. We partnered with a communications agency to develop a strong statement to capture people’s attention. One such message was ‘Don’t think about what can happen, think about the children’.

Researchers aimed to reach out to politicians as well as the media as a priority group. After strategic and long-term endeavours from the organisations behind the recommendation, researchers from LTU, Trafikanalys and Malin Henriksson met with Minister of Health and Social Affairs Jakob Forssmed. In September last year, she and an entire class from Fridtunaskolan in Linköping, who had participated in the project, went by bus to the Government Offices in Stockholm.

A child impact assessment was also produced. The assessment states that there are conflicts of objectives between children’s movement, health, and the environment on the one hand and traffic safety on the other; the recommendation as a whole, however, does serve the children’s best interests. Furthermore, the analysis emphasises that both children and adults must make a choice together regarding a mode of transport, and that cycling may not be feasible in some areas due to traffic conditions.

“For your message to be heard, it must be strong. An in-depth picture and nuances are also important. Above all, it is important to provide support to the parents who currently allow their children to cycle and walk to school,” says Malin Henriksson.

“In the analysis, we also interviewed children so that their voices were also heard. It showed that many children want to cycle and walk to school, and experience the freedom that independent mobility provides.”

And then? When the VTI researcher fast-forwards from the early spring of 2023 to the summer of 2024, she can observe a few things. The recommendation has not yet been formally adopted by any authority or organisation (the Swedish Transport Administration would be the closest to hand), but can still be used to provide support and guidelines for those who work with children and traffic.

The researchers have published a scientific article in a journal with a focus on policy. Hopefully, it can also be read by politicians and civil servants. And Malin Henriksson herself has written a memo about how roadworks can influence children’s cycling over a long period of time. This view emerged during the work on the recommendation.

“We try to keep the issue alive both scientifically and communicatively. But as a researcher, you tend to move from project to the next. For the issue to really take off, traffic planners and other relevant parties must take over and become involved. You have to be patient as well. Behavioural changes take time,” says Malin Henriksson.

In Luleå, follow-up studies at some schools have shown that the number of parents taking their children to school has decreased and more pupils are walking or cycling to school. And among the parents in her daughter’s class, Malin Henriksson also notices a small but telling change. Previously, the discussion was mostly about how picking up and dropping off should be arranged as smoothly as possible – now the emphasis is more on other ways of getting to and from school. A small but clear sign.

At VTI, the director of the Swedish Cycling Research Centre, Anna Niska, and researchers Jenny Eriksson and Sonja Forward, also participated in the work on the recommendation.

Text: Mikael Sönne