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Paper Title:
An evaluation of Safe
Routes to School in South Australia
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Authors:
Murray Couch, Anne McCutcheon,
Bill Cirocco
Abstract:
Safe Routes to School
(SRTS), 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 and with three objectives: a) to assess
the impact of the program; b) to track the progress of implementation
of the program and identify factors necessary for success; and c)
to assess the impact of SRTS on pedestrian and passenger safety
of primary school children. Using the approach of 'realistic evaluation'
(Pawson & 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
SRTS. Data sources included: parent surveys conducted as a component
of the program, site observations before and at the conclusion of
the evaluation period, stakeholder interviews, and records of evaluator's
field observations. This paper reports on the success of SRTS as
a framework for identifying and implementing local engineering changes
and changes in traffic and pedestrian behaviour patterns, including
student walking and cycling. This is the first mixed methods evaluation
of a Safe Routes to Schools program in Australia and points to the
multiple factors that need to be taken into account in evaluating
the effectiveness of such interventions.
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