4.3 Travel to Education
There are 31 Secondary and 247 Primary schools in Cornwall. In terms of Further Education establishments (those separate to the secondary school 6th form colleges), there are six main colleges at Penzance, Camborne, Falmouth, Truro, St Austell and Saltash. There is a Higher Education facility in the form of the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) at Penryn. Phase one of the CUC has been completed and 1,390 full time students have been enrolled on the courses created.
In terms of trip generation, with so many sites, travel to education has a significant impact on the transport network at a local level where traffic congestion immediately in and around many schools is common. The daily trips that are generated as part of the 'journey to school or college' can also be a contributory cause to congestion on the network in the morning and afternoon in the main urban areas.
The data that has been collected during the course of the first LTP suggests that car and walking are by far the highest modes of travelling to primary school and that the bus is generally the highest used mode to travel to secondary school although there are high levels of walking in some locations. This is illustrated in Figures 6.8 and 6.9. Perhaps the greatest factor to emerge over the period that the school travel planning work has been underway with the schools is that each and every school is very different and, therefore, the appropriate school travel plan will be very individual to that particular school.
We currently transport over 15,000 pupils and students to the County's schools and colleges. This is approximately 20% of the total enrolled numbers and costs the Authority over £10m per annum. Of those transported, 85% travel on full size vehicles; the remainder by minibuses or taxis. A significant proportion of the home to school and college movements are on 125 local bus services, supplemented by 300 dedicated school and college contract buses.