A brand new synthetic intelligence (AI) platform developed with help from the Division for Transport is being piloted as a possible resolution to one of many UK’s most entrenched transport challenges: the college run.
The proportion of pupils being pushed to high school in England has risen by 23% since 2005, with 37% now travelling by automobile as an alternative of strolling, biking, or utilizing public transport. On the similar time, the variety of kids strolling to high school has dropped by round 4%. The morning faculty run now accounts for practically 30% of peak-time visitors in London and is a rising contributor to congestion and emissions throughout the nation.
The STEP platform
The brand new instrument, often called STEP (College 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 components, to foretell how pupils journey to high school. By making use of AI at scale, STEP can reveal the place automobile dependency is highest, which routes are unsafe, and the place funding in strolling, biking, or public transport might have the most important influence.
HomeRun’s goal is to chop the proportion of pupils being pushed to high school from 37% as we speak to below 10% by 2035 — the equal of eradicating 650 million automobile journeys over the following decade.
In contrast to 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 stage with out the executive burden falling on colleges.
Essex pilot
Essex County Council (ECC) was the primary authority to pilot STEP. With just one officer beforehand accountable for 520 colleges throughout the county, ECC was restricted to working with round 35 colleges per yr. Utilizing STEP, the council was in a position to mannequin journey patterns for over 210,000 pupils throughout all 520 state colleges.
The ensuing knowledge has been used to underpin a significant funding bid for 30 new College Streets, which prohibit automobile entry throughout drop-off and pick-up instances. If profitable, this could characterize one of many largest College Streets rollouts in England exterior London.
Helen Akpabio, Lively Journey Supervisor at ECC, famous that the instrument permits interventions to be based mostly on want slightly than the passion of parent-teacher associations or particular person employees: “For the primary time, all colleges are assessed on a stage taking part in area. Interventions could be targeted the place they’re most wanted, not simply the place engagement is most responsive”.
Broader implications
The college 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 College Streets in recent times, these are sometimes concentrated in quieter residential areas. Colleges positioned on primary roads or in rural areas have largely missed out. Marketing campaign teams similar to Inexperienced College Runs and Resolve the College Run argue that platforms like STEP might assist councils and communities take a extra equitable, evidence-led method.
The significance of tackling the college 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 selected concentrate on the college journey. Nevertheless, campaigners and native authorities warn that with out strong knowledge instruments, councils threat “spending restricted funds blindly”.
Wanting forward
HomeRun’s CEO, Pooya Kamvari, stated that if the Essex outcomes had been replicated nationally, the UK might see a dramatic shift in class journey habits:
- A discount of 650 million automobile journeys
- Vital cuts in congestion and peak-time emissions
- More healthy, extra lively journey decisions for households
The corporate is looking on the federal government to help councils in adopting a data-led method by:
- Creating a nationwide faculty run technique
- Funding nationwide use of STEP and comparable instruments
- Incentivising councils to put money into interventions with measurable influence
- Requiring non-public and unbiased colleges to take part, reflecting their disproportionate contribution to high school run visitors
- Supporting new instruments just like the STEP Mother or father Portal to offer households personalised journey options
Campaigners say that after a long time of rising automobile dependency, AI-driven platforms might lastly present the intelligence wanted to reshape one of the crucial cussed components of UK transport.
