An evaluation of safe routes to school in South Australia

Safe Routes to School, an intervention being implemented by TransportSA, involves state and local government and local school communities and has three components: 1) engineering treatments; 2) child and school awareness and 3) an educational intervention implemented in participating schools. An evaluation was conducted with the aim of assessing its impact and effectiveness. Using the approach of ?realistic evaluation? (Pawson and Tilley 1997) with its focus on ?what works well for whom under what conditions? the evaluation tracked implementation in seven primary schools at different stages in the implementation process and had access to nine schools which had previously implemented Safe Routes to School. Data sources included: parent surveys, site observations before and at the conclusion of the evaluation period, stakeholder interviews; and records of evaluator?s field observations.

This paper reports on Safe Routes to School as a framework for identifying and implementing local engineering changes and changes in traffic and pedestrian behaviour patterns.