The Oamaru twins, who are in their second year at the University of Canterbury, have launched an online survey to investigate how primary, intermediate, and secondary school pupils travel to and from school in the Waitaki district.
Working with their university and the Waitaki District Council, their ‘‘Let’s Get Oamaruving!’’ project is aimed at identifying barriers school pupils might face with different transport modes.
‘‘I guess another aim of our research is trying to find potential solutions to incentivise low carbon travel,’’ Breanna said.
‘‘Incentivising cycling, walking, car pooling — that sort of thing.’’
The former Waitaki Girls’ High School pupils have gone in different directions at university — Alyssa is a bachelor of arts student, while Breanna is studying towards a bachelor of science — but they are both majoring in geography.
Their research project was inspired by a geography paper — ‘‘Transport, Urban Development and Wellbeing’’ — which examined the role and influence of transport in shaping towns and cities, and affecting personal wellbeing, with a particular focus on transforming streets and choosing more environmentally friendly modes of transport.
Not being able to find a lot of research on how to reduce carbon emissions in the transport sector in smaller towns and communities, they approached their lecturers and Waitaki District Council roading manager Mike Harrison with the idea for the Waitaki study.
‘‘A lot of stuff is happening in the urban centres, like Christchurch is getting a lot of cycle lanes, so we were like, ‘What can we do for our rural communities?’,’’ Alyssa said.
The survey was launched earlier this month, and was distributed to schools, through their newsletters, across Waitaki. They were interested in hearing from people across the district, from a mix of urban and rural schools.
‘‘The more data the better,’’ Alyssa said.
‘‘Then we can get, I guess, a holistic view of school travel in [Waitaki].’’
Although unplanned, their project ‘‘aligned so well’’ with the recent release of the Government’s emissions reduction plan. That plan includes reducing vehicle kilometres travelled by 20%, and outlines ‘‘making school travel greener and healthier’’ and ‘‘investigating the potential for public transport, walking and cycling in rural and provincial areas’’ as ways of achieving that.
‘‘It’s quite exciting because a lot of what it said was trying to investigate how rural communities can reduce their carbon emissions, so I think our research is quite timely in seeing how we can contribute to the Government’s work,’’ Breanna said.
As well as working towards the survey launch last week they were studying for end-of-year exams.
It had been hectic, but a good challenge in time management — and their university supervisors, Dr Lindsey Conrow and Prof Simon Kingham, had been ‘‘incredibly supportive’’, Breanna said.
Dr Conrow said the twins’ project was ‘‘exciting’’, and their research could feed into national transport policy decisions.
‘‘There’s a great deal we don’t know about transport solutions in smaller towns and regions.’’
Breanna and Alyssa said they planned to start collating and analysing data from November 23.
They would provide a report to the council, presenting their findings and some recommendations at a public forum.
As well as doing their research project and interning at the council over summer, they will also be working at their family business, Peter Pan Bakery.
