The bar chart illustrates the number of trips made by children aged 5-12 to and from school using five different modes of transport in the years 1990 and 2010.
Overall, while car usage increased dramatically over the period, other modes such as walking, cycling, walking and bus, and taking the bus independently saw significant declines. Notably, car travel, which was the least used mode in 1990, became the most common in 2010.
In detail, walking was the most popular mode of transport in 1990, with over 12 million trips, but this figure halved to 6 million in 2010, losing its leading position to car travel. Car travel, conversely, increased from about 4 million trips in 1990 to nearly 11 million in 2010, making it the most preferred method.
Cycling and the combination of walking and bus were both used for around 6 million trips in 1990. However, by 2010, these modes had decreased to 2 million and 3 million trips, respectively, showing a three-fold and two-fold reduction. Bus travel, which accounted for approximately 7 million trips in 1990, dropped to 5 million in 2010 but remained the third most common mode throughout the period.