The effects of picking up primary school pupils on surrounding street’s traffic in Hanoi - Vietnam

What is it about?

One of the significant characteristics of schools in Vietnam is that almost all parents send their children to school and/or pick up their children at school by using private vehicles (motorcycles). The parents usually stop and park their vehicle on streets outside the school gates which can lead to serious congestion and increases the likelihood of traffic accidents. The objective of this study is to find out factors affecting the picking up of pupils at primary school by evaluating typical primary schools in Hanoi city. A binary logistic regression model was used to determine factors that influence the decision of picking up pupils and the waiting duration of parents. The behavior of motorcyclists during the process of picking up pupils at the primary school gate has been identified and analyzed in detail by Kinovea software. The study showed that, on the way back to home, almost all parents use motorbikes (89.15%) to pick up their children. During their waiting time (8.48 minutes on average), they made a lot of illegal parking actions on the street which caused a lot of "cognitive” errors and "crash” points surrounding in front of the primary school entrance gate. Risky picking-up behaviors were significantly observed, i.e. picking-up on the opposite side of the school, making a U-turn, backing-up dangerously, parking on the middle of street, and parking on the street next to sidewalk). Based on the analyzed results, several traffic management measures have been suggested to enhance traffic safety and to reduce traffic congestion in front of school gates. In addition, the results of the study will provide a useful reference for policymakers and authorities.

Featured Image

Photo by Samuel Toh on Unsplash

Photo by Samuel Toh on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The study has provided a view of the number of parent’s motorcycles waiting for their children in front of primary school gates. In order to improve traffic conditions around school area, we need to mitigate the number of picking up pupils, reduce the use of private vehicles (motorcycle), decrease the waiting duration of parents and understand their habit of picking up. Traffic management measures are practically introduced such as making a layout of parking areas, organizing one-way street and/or limiting of through vehicles during the concentration of shuttle motorcyclists. Smart solutions can be also suggested such as to apply information and communications technology (ICT) based devices to communicate between the school teachers and parents to reduce the waiting duration, and to arrange suitably parking areas to avoid illegal parking cases.