School Childrens Intelligent Travel Network for Scotland

Network Aims

Ensuring safe and sustainable travel for school children is a critical issue, where road safety, active travel, and environmental concerns intersect. A dedicated network for researchers, policymakers, and professionals in Scotland will drive innovation, share best practices, and implement evidence-based solutions to improve school travel safety. This network will create a collaborative network that improves school travel safety across Scotland through data-driven strategies, infrastructure innovation, and community engagement. It will bridge the gaps between research, policy, and practice — advocating children travel safety, sustainably, and equity. This network will be at the forefront in advocating for intelligent investment in Scotland’s future through equitable school travel.

This will be the first such Network in Scotland, with the aim of creating critical mass in school safety, with an emphasis on public sector organizations responsible for policy and implementation. The Transport Research Institute has been at the forefront of Transportation Research in Scotland since 1996, which is evident through its track record and its large alumni network. TRI has a recognized international reputation in policy development, implementation, use of advanced modelling techniques, artificial intelligence, stakeholder engagement and advocacy, for a sustainable transportation and population health.

Events

For more information on future SCITNES events, please contact Adrian Davis at A.Davis@napier.ac.uk 

Previous Events

February 2026 - Engaging with politicians and Parliament on children's travel matters

Alan Rehfisch, senior researcher for transport and planning at the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) shone a light on the people and institutions that create and scrutinise the laws, policies, guidance, and budgets which affect how, where, and when children travel across Scotland.

Find out more about this event here

October 2025 - Getting it right for every child – active travel policy in Scotland: where we are and where we (should) go next?

Dr Caroline Brown, former Herriot—Watt academic, gave a presentation on previous research undertaken for Climate Xchange.

Library/Resources

Over time we aim to become a One-stop shop for all things addressing school-aged children’s travel. One of the immediate ambitions is o pull together the stock of existing knowledge either as links or as down-loadable documents. A particular effort will be made to at least provide links to ‘grey literature’, the reports by NGOs, consultants and others which may otherwise get lost as institutional and individual memories fade over time. We also, over time, will provide links to a selection of peer reviewed papers, either just Abstracts and sometimes fully Open Access studies. Here are some examples:

Peer reviewed

• A qualitative evaluation of the implementation, outcomes, and sustainability of 'School Streets'
• The effect of a School Street intervention on children's active travel, satisfaction with their street, and perception of road safety: a natural experimental evaluation
• Encouraging sustainable travel behaviour in children, young people and their families
• Effectiveness and equity impacts of traffic restriction schemes outside schools: a controlled natural experimental study
• Do schemes to restrict cars outside schools work and why?
• Implementing a novel signage-only School Streets approach: Facilitators, barriers, and perceived outcomes
• Park and Stride for Health and Wellbeing: Evaluation of a wayfinding intervention to promote active travel to school in Oxfordshire, UK
• My Way to School Through a Camera Lens: Involving Children to Inform a Policy Recommendation on Active School Travel
• Impacts of community-wide infrastructure intervention on children's active school travel: A controlled before-and-after study

Non peer review

• Enabling Independent Active Travel for Young Scots
• Teenagers and Public Space
• School Street Closures and Traffic Displacement Project

Contacts

For all enquiries regarding the School Children's Intelligent Travel Network for Scotland, please get in touch with:

Dr Faheem Malik  (f.malik@napier.ac.uk)

Professor Adrian Davis (a.davis@napier.ac.uk)

Funders

As we develop and grow, we will need funding funding to help host events and pay for the usual running costs associated with such activities. This is clearly an area we need to develop. At the Transport Research Institute, we will be looking for funding for projects as well.