Why You Should Care About the New School Year: Increased Traffic
While many motorists consider the summer months to be the best time to roadtrip, you’ll still find the average American spending an ample amount of time in the car come September mornings. Why? The school year has begun.
When digging for data, it’s hard to find super current statistics about commute traffic, as surveys from 2020 and on have been skewed from the COVID-19 pandemic’s long-term stay-at- and work-from- home orders. However, a Google Maps article from 2018 states that nationally, morning rush hour traffic increases up to 21% once students head back to school.
That number can even jump to a jaw-dropping 49% in certain highly-populated areas of the United States! So you can be sure that you’re not alone if you’ve ever experienced a laborious post-Labor Day morning commute.
New Routines Lead to Increased Opportunity
Traffic jams aside, the school year also signifies big shifts to people’s regular routines – which can boast big opportunities for your business. The US Census Bureau reported in 2022 that over 40% of all family households in the United States contained at least one child under the age of 18, with 17.16 million students enrolled in either public or private institutions that same year.
Whoa! A lot of families will be switching up their schedule to now include driving to school activities like drop-off, pick-up, practices, and games. That extra time sure adds up. In fact, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s 2022 American Driving Survey has reported that the average American spent nearly 23 minutes per day driving solely for a “school-related” purpose, making an average of 6 separate trips.
Nearly All Drivers Are Impacted By School Traffic
Many drivers are headed in new directions when the school year rolls around, regardless of if they have children. Even childless drivers try alternate routes in the fall, though it’s in an attempt to evade increased traffic rather than incorporate drop-off.
All this increased traffic provides you numerous opportunities to get noticed by NEW customers. It’s up to you to make sure your business is ready before the school year begins. Don’t let potential sales pass you by!
Call us at 651-661-9710 to learn how you can gear up your business for one of the busiest times of the year.
P.S. We grabbed that US Census Bureau from two different pages on Statista. You can find the household info here, and the enrollment numbers here.