With Back-to-School season just around the corner here in North Carolina, many students and parents are bracing for the challenges of morning traffic and lengthy carpool lines. Our traffic engineers at DRMP are committed to making these daily commutes smoother and safer for both existing and future schools nationwide.

School traffic patterns are unique and require specialized expertise to analyze and evaluate properly. Key considerations include the efficient flow of drop-offs and pick-ups to ensure vehicles move smoothly on and off campus while maintaining safe student loading and unloading.

DRMP prepares traffic studies for school projects to address the important issues of school traffic impacts on the surrounding roadways as well as traffic flow on the school campus.  Traffic Management Plans are developed working with school representatives and Departments of Transportation, which are provided to teachers, staff, and parents to organize and control traffic flow on and around the school campus. 

Traffic Impact Variations

The traffic impact varies by school type. Elementary schools often see more parent drop-offs; middle schools typically have less traffic than elementary schools; and high schools involve both parent trips and student drivers. Additionally, public schools generally have bus services, whereas private schools do not, influencing the volume of parent traffic to and from the campus.

Our goal is to address these nuances to improve traffic management and enhance safety for everyone involved.

Schools need to plan for efficient vehicle stacking on campus to minimize congestion and prevent stopped vehicles from parking on surrounding roads. Properly managing the anticipated vehicle queues on campus not only optimizes the use of space but also reduces the need for extensive pavement and minimizes property impact. Additionally, separating parent drop-off and pick-up traffic from bus and student driver traffic, if feasible, can further improve operational efficiency on campus.

In North Carolina, the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Municipal and School Transportation Assistance (MSTA) group is focused on improving traffic operations at schools.  Additional information can be found on their website.

DRMP are experts in school traffic studies and have provided traffic engineering services to hundreds of schools of all types.  We are excited to help you with your school study.  For more information, contact Chief Traffic Analysis Engineer Rynal Stephenson, PE, at [email protected].