The Newcastle School Streets (NSS) scheme uses a novel signage only approach to deter vehicles from driving through certain streets around schools during pick up and drop off times. It was implemented through Newcastle City Council (NCC) in partnership with Sustrans and four primary schools.

A retrospective mixed-methods evaluation of the implementation and outcomes of NSS was undertaken using The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) model (Damschroder 2022). A broad range of stakeholders was engaged to evaluate NSS exploring the adoption and implementation of the scheme at local authority and school level, acceptability at the school and community level and the effectiveness of the programme through changes in active travel behaviour and traffic counts.

Overall, the perception of success of school streets varied depending on the stakeholder groups. It was a low-cost initiative (signage only) and parents and residents reported some initial perceived improvements in the environment surrounding the school with fewer cars around; however, compliance decreased over time. There was a decrease in traffic around some schools with weak evidence of change in mode of travel.

The lack of enforcement was a barrier to compliance and traffic reduction. Schools wanted more support to maintain the scheme at their schools and pupils wanted the ‘cars’ to do the right thing and obey the signs.

The signage-only approach to School Streets is a promising approach to improving air quality and child safety at the school gates. Evidence of effectiveness would be strengthened by using quasi-experimental, prospective design in future evaluations.

Dr Jo Barnes, Reader in Traffic Injury Prevention, Loughborough University

Dr Jo Barnes is a Reader in Traffic Injury Prevention and has over 20-years’ experience working in this area in the UK and Australia.

Her research focuses on road users to explicitly understand who and why people are injured in crashes, what the consequences of injury are to people’s health and identify how injuries can be prevented.