{"id":174245,"date":"2026-08-26T12:11:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/?p=174245"},"modified":"2026-09-08T15:38:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T21:38:42","slug":"school-mobility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/cities-and-prosperous-communities\/school-mobility\/","title":{"rendered":"Safe Routes to School: How Can We Tell Whether the Programs Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Road traffic crashes are one of the leading threats to children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean. According to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), they are the third leading cause of death among people ages 5 to 14 in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their journeys to and from school, children face risks linked to the design and condition of streets<\/strong>, as well as inadequate regulations and economic inequalities that heighten their vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this backdrop, researchers from Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey\u2019s Center for the Future of Cities<\/a> (CFC) are participating in Movilab Escolar<\/a>: Caminos seguros, sostenibles e inclusivos<\/em>, an applied research project designed to strengthen programs that make routes to school safer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea is to help improve and advance safe school mobility programs across the region,\u201d says N\u00e9lida Escobedo<\/a>, a professor at the School of Architecture, Art and Design<\/a> and a researcher at the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Laboratory for Improving School Mobility<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The project is organized around three components. The first is an assessment of school mobility programs<\/strong> to identify their bottlenecks and develop indicators for measuring their impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second component involves analyzing public policies<\/strong> and creating road maps tailored to the particular needs of countries and cities to improve their programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final component seeks to disseminate knowledge<\/strong>, train public officials, and promote the exchange of experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis project falls under the IDB\u2019s Regional Public Goods initiative, a technical cooperation mechanism through which the bank supports the creation of knowledge that can lead to improvements in public policy and regulations, as well as in how programs are implemented and maintained,\u201d Escobedo explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Movilab Escolar team formed a partnership with the Insper Institute of Education and Research in Brazil, which hosted a meeting for project beneficiaries. (Photo: Center for the Future of Cities)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An assessment to determine whether the programs work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As part of the assessment, Movilab Escolar analyzed seven school mobility cases in Latin America: nationwide programs in Argentina, the Dominican Republic, and Peru, as well as city-level initiatives in Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, and Jundia\u00ed, Salvador, and Recife, Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assessment examined factors including the programs\u2019 vision and strategy, street design, operations, regulations, monitoring, and financial sustainability.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initiative was developed jointly with the consulting firm Cidade Ativa<\/a>, which produced the content for the assessment report and is currently working on developing the evaluation model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analysis revealed significant differences in how developed the initiatives are. In Bogot\u00e1, for example, Ni\u00f1as y Ni\u00f1os Primero <\/strong>has become an established part of city operations, with a dedicated budget and an experienced implementation team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Recife, Brazil, efforts have focused more heavily on physical interventions, such as street rehabilitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the differences among the programs and their levels of maturity, the team identified a shared challenge: evaluating their impact<\/strong>. In other words, these initiatives are lagging when it comes to measuring the results they produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne thing we found among all project beneficiaries and across the region is that monitoring and evaluating the impact of these programs remains a challenge,\u201d Escobedo says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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