Promising results from the short-term evaluation of the RideScore Active Schools program, in Queensland, Australia

Background: Australian children are not meeting recommended daily physical activity and active school travel targets. To increase active wheeled travel to school, the RideScore Active Schools program used gamification to motivate children's participation and smart app technology to provide parents reassurance of children's arrival to and departure from school. Program reach and RideScore's short-term impact on children's active travel from preparatory year to grade six were evaluated. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was utilised with eight school sites allocated to the intervention condition and four schools to the comparison condition, in Queensland, Australia. Bicycle and scooter counts were completed at baseline (T1) and four-months later (T2). The school was the unit of observation and analysis. Program reach and children's participation were assessed through registrations, trip numbers, riding frequency, and distance travelled. Data were analysed using regression analysis with heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors. Results: From baseline, total bike count increased 38.0 % in intervention schools and decreased 4.3 % in comparison schools. Adjusting for school enrolment, between T1 and T2, intervention relative to comparison schools recorded an average daily increase of 33.6 bikes (p = 0.03), corresponding to an average percentage increase of 55.2 % (p = 0.01). The effect size was moderate (Hedge's g = 0.78). Children travelled a total distance of 88,004 km, corresponding to 12.8 tonnes of CO₂ saved. Conditional on assumed travel speeds of 14 km/h and 10 km/hr, commuting contributed 6.5–9.1 min per day to children's physical activity. Conclusion: RideScore increased active wheeled travel and contributed to primary school children's recommended daily physical activity targets.