A Sunshine Coast active school transport program has received international recognition by exceeding global benchmarks.
The top-tier international Journal of Transport and Health assessed the region’s RideScore Active Schools program, which involves more than 1000 primary school participants, as world-leading.
Sunshine Coast Council Managing for Growth Portfolio Councillor Christian Dickson said the journal’s report showed RideScore was responsible for a 55 percent increases in bicycle and scooter trips to school across a four-month period.
Cr Dickson said the report noted this was “a significant increase compared to many other active school programs in Australia and internationally”.
He said the success was attributed to RideScore addressing parents’ concerns around independent travel, with automated messages through a dedicated app on arrival and departure and motivating the students through gamification with a variety of incentives, competition and leaderboards.
“We all want our kids to be safe, active and happy, especially on the trip they do every day to school.”
Cr Dickson said RideScore, a partnership between the Sunshine Coast Council and WeRide Australia, did this, as well as helping to reduce traffic around schools at peak times.
“The international recognition that comes from the publication in this prestigious journal is a testament to all the hard work done by our Transport team and even better as the idea came from one of our own staff.”
He said the original concept was the brainchild of Sunshine Coast Council Officer Colleen Penny.
“It has been a long road to this point after I first set up a basic system of notifications for parents at my son’s school back in 2017,” Ms Penny said.
“As a parent myself, I’ve always understood the hesitation many families feel about letting their children travel independently to school.
“The notifications provide peace of mind for parents while empowering independence and building resilience in kids.”
WeRide’s Peter Bourke said the concept had clearly hit the mark.
“WeRide had been working with many ride to school programs and as soon as we became aware of the small program being run by the Sunshine Coast Council we realised it ticked all the boxes,” Mr Bourke said.
Read the full report: Promising results from the short-term evaluation of the RideScore Active Schools program, in Queensland, Australia.
