Our new School Run Cruncher

The school run makes up a high share of morning rush hour traffic. It’s no surprise then, that most of us will at some point have noticed that local roads seem to be much quieter during the school holidays.

In 2018 Transport for London estimated that a quarter of weekday morning peak car trips in London are for school drop-offs. Shifting these daily journeys to walking, cycling, wheeling and public transport is an important part of meeting climate goals - as well as being a healthier way for kids to start their school days. But with motor traffic often dominating the streets outside the school gates, it can be challenging to make the switch without support. 

That’s why Possible is such a big fan of School Streets - where roads with schools on are closed to through traffic for short periods during drop off and pickup times every weekday. School Streets have been shown to help parents drive less, which cuts pollution and makes the streets safer for families walking, cycling, scooting and wheeling to school. You can find out more about School Streets here. 

To help make the case for more School Streets and similar measures, Possible have teamed up with the brilliant new campaign group Solve the School Run on a special project to work out exactly how much of the congestion on local roads during the morning rush hour is down to school run traffic - and we need your help!

Now, for the first time, our new School Run Cruncher tool can use data from Google Maps to put numbers on exactly how big the difference in local congestion levels really is between term times and school holidays. Our clever data gnomes have written some code that will check congestion on any given road route multiple times every weekday for the coming school year. One full year of this data, combined with information about nearby school term times, will enable us to calculate just how big the reduction in congestion could be from switching school run journeys in your area from cars to active and sustainable transport instead.

If you think you have noticed traffic jams disappearing from a main road near you during the school holidays, now is your chance to prove it. Just enter the details of the road route and any nearby schools into the School Run Cruncher google form here, and away you go!