The Heart Zone Project
“Hjertesone” (Norwegian for Heart Zone, in the meaning of a safe and healthy zone) is a national initiative and a collaboration between the Norwegian Council for Road Safety (the project manager), the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, the Directorate of Health, the police, the Cyclists’ Association, the Environmental Agency, and the Parent Committee for primary and lower secondary education. All the actors are dedicated to promoting children’s safety and health on the way to school.
The purpose of a Heart Zone is to eliminate or reduce the car traffic related to bringing and picking up children within the Heart Zone, so that it becomes safer for children and adults to cycle and walk within the zone. This can mean that traffic is regulated around the school and that smaller changes to the infrastructure are made in the school’s surroundings. However, the main emphasis is on behavioural and attitude measures that reduce parental driving to and from school and that inspire more people to cycle and walk.
Traffic safety and mobility education are a natural part of the project. The target is to help increase road safety around the school and improve the health of the pupils. Children who walk and cycle to school are physically active, which is good for public health and learning – as well as good for the environment.
An example of how the heart zone can be marked on the map, although the zone is not always formed like a heart as pictured. The red hearts indicate drop off places.
There is no ready-made recipe for a Heart Zone. Measures must be adapted in a natural and sensible way with respect to the traffic environment and the opportunities that exist at each school. A Heart Zone is not a complete product, but a process consisting of small and large measures. Some measures can be put in place quickly, while others can be more demanding and may take longer to implement.
There is no need for a formal political decision by the municipality to establish Heart Zone schools. Each school can start work on their safe zone independently. Experience shows that there are both pros and cons in making political decisions to establish the Heart Zone at all schools.
The evaluation of the Heart Zone project
In 2019, a study was conducted based on the implementation of a Heart Zone for a school in Drammen, while in 2020, a report from Bergen was prepared that contained the information necessary to get started with the Heart Zone work in a good and efficient manner. The working document was prepared for use by municipalities, school planners in connection with the reconstruction and planning of new schools, as well as school management, parents and student councils who want to implement a Heart Zone at their school.
On behalf of the Norwegian Council for Road Safety, TØI has carried out an evaluation of the project so far, before it enters a further phase. As part of this TØI evaluation, the Heart Zone programme was evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative evaluation was based on focus group interviews and individual interviews with representatives of the steering and project group as well as school management and parents at selected schools. In addition, a quantitative survey was conducted among representatives of school management and parents.
The Heart Zone symbol is sometimes marked on the ground or, as pictured, on a sign.
The overall impression from the interviews was that there are varying experiences of how well Heart Zones have worked. Nevertheless, several schools felt that heart zone work has been a valuable contribution to traffic safety work, and that the measure has had positive effects.
An explanation for the varying experiences observed among schools could very well be the different starting points of the schools for introducing the measure. For certain schools, the infrastructure and traffic environment around the school made it possible to establish a Heart Zone without major physical measures, whereas for other schools it made it difficult to find good solutions. An important element for success from the project is that the Heart Zone is incorporated into the municipality’s formal processes, so that facilitation for Heart Zones is included as part of the planning of new schools.
While the evaluation showed that there are both advantages and disadvantages to the project being initiated on the basis of a political decision, it also showed a clear advantage resulting from the measure being anchored in the school’s management. This anchoring is considered important by the evaluators, as it has contributed to the measure being incorporated into the school’s routines: it is put on the agenda, mentioned in communication to parents and in parents’ meetings.
The evaluation’s interviews furthermore emphasised that Heart Zones had contributed to raising awareness about traffic safety and the driving culture among school employees and parents. Some schools found that Heart Zone had also contributed to less traffic chaos around the school and fewer people driving. This was confirmed by the results of the evaluation survey, which showed that most respondents had a good knowledge of what a Heart Zone is and where drop-off zones were located. A not insignificant proportion also reported that they drive less, and instead walk and cycle more, as a result of the school being given a Heart Zone, while some respondents also indicated to have become more aware of vulnerable road users.
However, the evaluation also points to potential for improvement with regard to further implementation of the Heart Zone. This is primarily about the framework for the project not being defined in advance, that a thorough enough assessment had not been made to identify resource needs in the municipality in advance, and that mapping of the schools’ needs was done along the way. A prior impact assessment would likely have helped to clarify the need for resources and at the same time would have helped clarify to school employees and parents what the project should be.
The Heart Zones project was presented during the 2022 European Traffic Education Seminar.
More Information
LEARN! Manual Example 17: The advantages and disadvantages of a top-down approach for implementing measures in the context of the Heart Zone implementation.
Norconsult (2019), Evaluering av Hjertesoneprosjektet ved Øren skole I Drammen commune.
Norconsult (2020), Hjertesone arbeidsdokument, Bergen.
TØI (2022), Prosessevaluering av Hjertesoneprosjektet i Bergen.
For more information on evaluating activities on traffic safety and mobility education, see Step 8 on evaluation in the LEARN! Manual.