The Cross River Partnership (CRP) VivaCity programme has been deployed as a school street monitoring scheme at Saint Scholastica’s Roman Catholic Primary School in east London, gathering data about the variations of motorised and non-motorised road users as a result of the implementation. 

A school street is a road, or section of a road, that becomes temporarily closed to vehicular traffic during school drop-off and pick-up times and where a pedestrian and cycle only zone is created in front of the school. The road closures can be seen on the map below and the monitoring took place from 4th November 2021 to 31st December 2020. 

A VivaCity sensor was installed on a strategic point to collect anonymous data on different types of road users including pedestrians and cars and to understand movement patterns. 

The Findings

When analysing the data (see graph below), it’s clear that there are two distinct peaks in weekday pedestrian numbers, coinciding with the established school street and cycling timings (8.30am to 9.30am and 3pm to 4pm). The number of pedestrians reaches 105 in the morning and 111 in the afternoon peak times, which is significantly higher than any other times during the day, both weekdays and weekends. 

It’s safe to conclude that the CRP VivaCity programme has helped provide evidence that the school street scheme is being used as planned and that the number of parents and children walking to school have increased.

Further Information

The Cross River Partnership VivaCity programme is part of the Healthy Streets Everyday initiative, with a focus on empowering boroughs, businesses and communities across London to create projects with pedestrian welfare and healthy streets in mind, increasing active travel while reducing emissions and overall exposure to toxic air. 

For further Information about this and other case studies, and to see how Cross River Partnership is helping monitor and assess the efficiency of other schemes, you can download their full report Meaningful Monitoring: Providing the Path to Positive Change via their website. 

Make sure to visit our technology pages to learn more about our AI-power traffic monitoring sensor used in this study. If you have any questions or would like a demo, get in touch with our team now. 

Like our content? Sign up to our newsletter and receive the latest updates in your inbox.