An assessment of the benefits of the walking school bus in Christchurch, New Zealand Simon Kingham * , Shannon Ussher Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand Received 11 April 2006; received in revised form 23 May 2006; accepted 21 November 2006 Abstract A Walking School Bus involves parents or other adults escorting a group of children on a set route to school. The first one was established in 1996 in Canada. They can now be found in a variety of countries, including New Zealand. Many of the benefits associated with them are based on the general benefits of affecting a modal shift away from cars in favour of walking. However, there is still relatively little known about the less quantifiable benefits of them, and there has been some suggestion that they can adversely affect children’s independent mobility. This research examined the perceived benefits of Walking School Buses by interviewing people involved in the day to running of the scheme in Christchurch, New Zealand. The results suggest that walking school buses have many social benefits and that if anything; they encourage children’s independent mobility. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Walking school bus; Benefits; School travel; Sustainable transport 1. Introduction An increasing proportion of children are being driven to and from school in private motor vehicles, at the expense of more active and sustainable modes, such as walking. Hillman (2002) found that in the United King- dom the proportion of children taken to school by car has doubled in the last 15 years, while the proportion travelling on foot has declined by a quarter. Similar findings have been seen in New Zealand (O’Fallon et al., 2002; Cottam, 2001). This notable decline in children walking to school, and the related dramatic increase in those being driven, is of significant concern. In response to these rising concerns, local government and other interested organisations around the world have introduced a variety of road safety initiatives to schools in order to reduce the dominance of cars on the school journey. One such initiative has been the development of Walking School Buses. A Walking School Bus (WSB) involves parents or other adults acting as drivers in which they ‘‘walk a set route, much like a school 0965-8564/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tra.2006.11.008 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +64 3 364 2987; fax: +64 3 364 2907. E-mail address: simon.kingham@canterbury.ac.nz (S. Kingham). Transportation Research Part A 41 (2007) 502–510 www.elsevier.com/locate/tra