School Run to Net Zero: A Transition Engineering Labs Use Case Report

The dominant transport mode for school journeys is safe, comfortable and affordable private automobiles. The transport system consists of well-engineered roads. Carers know that the car is usually the safest and most convenient option for the school run. Traffic congestion, air pollution, loss of exercise and increased risk to pedestrians and cyclists are thoroughly researched externality costs of the automobile school run. Net zero emission targets impose additional tensions for schools and local authorities to make rapid changes. Travel demand management research has been aiming to keep motorised vehicles away from schools, and to encourage physically active modes for the school run. But changing the infrastructure, travel behaviour and culture of a school community presents a wicked problem that requires transdisciplinary systems approaches from engineering and social science. This article reports on the Transition Engineering co-design process with incumbent stakeholders. The result is a novel learning and teaching programme which also achieved safe and sustainable school transport. The programme enables students to engineer the changes they require, communicate their needs to decision makers, and achieve net zero with fair provision. The school culture shifted to finding their own way to net zero school transport, contributing to wider community travel demand management efforts. The protocol of the design process, the co-design results, and a reflection on the preliminary stakeholder feedback are presented. The article addresses the wider challenge of how transdisciplinary transition engineering can deliver safety and sustainability of incumbent engineered systems, while navigating real-world social and economic dynamics.