The percentage of morning rush hour traffic attributable to personal vehicles
taking students to school in 2009 is shown in Table 2. For students in grades
K-12th, parents driving students and teens driving themselves to school accounted
for two to three percent of all the personal vehicle trips made during 2009. When
only morning peak travel during the academic year is considered, personal
vehicles taking students to school accounted for 10 to14 percent of all the
personal vehicle trips made from 7:00 am to 9:00 a.m. during September through
May 2009. Among the parents who drove their children to school, approximately
40% returned home immediately after dropping their child at school.
Parents driving students and teens driving themselves to school contributed one to
two percent to the overall annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the country and
five to seven percent of VMT during the morning peak period of the school year.