A brand new synthetic intelligence (AI) platform developed with assist from the Division for Transport is being piloted as a possible answer to one of many UK’s most entrenched transport challenges: the varsity run.
The proportion of pupils being pushed to highschool in England has risen by 23% since 2005, with 37% now travelling by automotive as a substitute of strolling, biking, or utilizing public transport. On the similar time, the variety of youngsters strolling to highschool has dropped by round 4%. The morning faculty run now accounts for almost 30% of peak-time site visitors in London and is a rising contributor to congestion and emissions throughout the nation.
The STEP platform
The brand new instrument, often known as STEP (Faculty Journey Engagement Platform), has been created by the UK-based start-up HomeRun. It makes use of anonymised postcode knowledge, mixed with behavioural, social, and geographical elements, to foretell how pupils journey to highschool. By making use of AI at scale, STEP can reveal the place automotive dependency is highest, which routes are unsafe, and the place funding in strolling, biking, or public transport might have the most important affect.
HomeRun’s goal is to chop the proportion of pupils being pushed to highschool from 37% as we speak to below 10% by 2035 — the equal of eradicating 650 million automotive journeys over the subsequent decade.
Not like conventional faculty journey plans, which require surveys and the cooperation of overstretched headteachers, the platform permits councils and authorities departments to plan interventions at county and even nationwide degree with out the executive burden falling on faculties.
Essex pilot
Essex County Council (ECC) was the primary authority to pilot STEP. With just one officer beforehand chargeable for 520 faculties throughout the county, ECC was restricted to working with round 35 faculties per yr. Utilizing STEP, the council was capable of mannequin journey patterns for over 210,000 pupils throughout all 520 state faculties.
The ensuing knowledge has been used to underpin a significant funding bid for 30 new Faculty Streets, which limit automotive entry throughout drop-off and pick-up occasions. If profitable, this is able to symbolize one of many largest Faculty Streets rollouts in England outdoors London.
Helen Akpabio, Lively Journey Supervisor at ECC, famous that the instrument permits interventions to be based mostly on want moderately than the passion of parent-teacher associations or particular person workers: “For the primary time, all faculties are assessed on a degree taking part in discipline. Interventions could be centered the place they’re most wanted, not simply the place engagement is most responsive”.
Broader implications
The varsity run has lengthy been ignored in nationwide transport methods. With native authorities spending greater than £2 billion yearly on statutory home-to-school transport for SEND college students alone, many councils have scaled again wider faculty transport provision to the naked minimal.
Whereas some city councils have launched Faculty Streets lately, these are sometimes concentrated in quieter residential areas. Colleges situated on most important roads or in rural areas have largely missed out. Marketing campaign teams corresponding to Inexperienced Faculty Runs and Clear up the Faculty Run argue that platforms like STEP might assist councils and communities take a extra equitable, evidence-led method.
The significance of tackling the varsity run was recognised on 2 July 2025, when the mayors of England’s Mixed Authorities signed a nationwide pledge to prioritise strolling, wheeling, and biking, with a particular give attention to the varsity journey. Nonetheless, campaigners and native authorities warn that with out strong knowledge instruments, councils danger “spending restricted funds blindly”.
Trying forward
HomeRun’s CEO, Pooya Kamvari, stated that if the Essex outcomes have been replicated nationally, the UK might see a dramatic shift at school journey habits:
- A discount of 650 million automotive journeys
- Vital cuts in congestion and peak-time emissions
- More healthy, extra energetic journey decisions for households
The corporate is looking on the federal government to assist councils in adopting a data-led method by:
- Growing a nationwide faculty run technique
- Funding nationwide use of STEP and comparable instruments
- Incentivising councils to put money into interventions with measurable affect
- Requiring non-public and impartial faculties to take part, reflecting their disproportionate contribution to highschool run site visitors
- Supporting new instruments just like the STEP Father or mother Portal to provide households personalised journey alternate options
Campaigners say that after many years of rising automotive dependency, AI-driven platforms might lastly present the intelligence wanted to reshape one of the vital cussed parts of UK transport.
