Building Future Societies? A Brief Analysis of Braga’s School Bus Project

Abstract

This paper seeks to demonstrate the importance of implementing transport policies that meet home to school (and vice versa) mobility needs of children and young people. Over the last few years families’ mobility has been given increasing attention. One of the most investigated aspects is home to work mobility. Nowadays there is an urgent need to study and propose intervention measures regarding children’s mobility to school. In fact, studies show that the car is the preferred mode of transportation in Portugal. This trend has undoubtedly negative social, environmental and health consequences. Based on an evaluation study on the School Bus project in Braga (a research- intervention activity of BUILD-Braga Urban Innovation Laboratory Demonstrator), this paper discusses the difficulties in implementing sustainable mobility initiatives, pointing out anticipatory measures that can be taken in medium-sized cities in order to stop the expansion of children’s transportation by car, and give them back spaces in the cities.