Research has been carried out into how children travel to and from school in Northern Ireland.
The publication includes active and sustainable travel statistics for travel to and from school by pupils in 2024/2025. Within the 3,790 households surveyed, a total of 4,584 individuals took part.
The report provides annual statistics on the main method of travel to/from school and the proportion of primary school and post-primary school pupils who walk and cycle to school.
Key Points:
Primary School
- For main mode of travel, almost two-thirds of pupils (64%) were driven to/from school by car, 27% usually walked or cycled and a further 9% took a bus.
- Of those primary school pupils who walked to/from school, 90% walked all the way. Three-fifths (61%) spent 10 minutes or less walking to and from school and a quarter (25%) spent 11-20 minutes.
- Almost half (49%) of primary school pupils lived a mile or less from school and of these, 52% were driven to school by car and 48% walked or cycled to school.
Post-Primary School
- Amongst post-primary school pupils, almost half (47%) travelled to/from school by bus as their main mode of travel, while 31% travelled by car. A further 18% of pupils walked or cycled to/from school.
- Of those post-primary school pupils who walked to/from school, 90% walked all the way. One-third (33%) spent 10 minutes or less walking to and from school, 31% spent 11-20 minutes and 36% spent more than 20 minutes.
- Half of post-primary school pupils (50%) lived 4 or more miles from their school. Under a quarter (23%) lived less than 1 mile from their school and, of those, 63% walked or cycled to/from school.
The publication is available on the www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/
