Background In the hilly and mountainous areas on the fringes of metropolitan regions of Japan, depopulation has progressed, and sustaining the public transportation network gets difficult, and this hinders high school students from commuting to school. In resource-scare periphery areas, utilizing environmentally friendly electric-assist bicycles, which offer cost-effective and flexible mobility compared to public transportation, proves beneficial and feasible for mobility enhancement. However, in these areas, the road infrastructure for bicycles is inadequate, resulting in hazardous commuting conditions for students. While local administration is responsible for ensuring safety, limited resources hinder adequate response.

Objective The initiative aims to encourage proactive participation of high school students in efforts to enhance e-bike traffic safety, to propose and implement measures contributing to the improvement of road traffic safety. Additionally, it seeks to improve engagement in transportation safety among high school students and governmental bodies.

Programme Description The program was initiated, led by high school students and the authors, to engage local residents, authorities, and police in efforts to realize safe bicycle infrastructure. Specifically, workshops were conducted multiple times to: 1) enable high school students to create educational materials for safe riding, and 2) identify hazardous areas in road infrastructure and propose realistic improvement solutions in collaboration with authorities, residents, police, etc. This paper primarily focuses on the latter program.

Outcomes and Learnings Shared challenges faced by high school students led to a consensus among local stakeholders on proposed measures and their implementation. Moreover, through this series of activities, the engagement of high school students with the local community increased, along with enhanced awareness among participating authorities and residents regarding the role of high school students in community safety initiatives by analyzing the questionnaire survey data for attendance of the workshops.

Implications Demonstrating the effectiveness of high school students actively engaging in safety initiatives as stakeholders rather than being passive beneficiaries highlights the potential for their significant contribution in resource-scarce rural areas.

Conclusions It underscores the substantial potential for high school students to play a role in fostering safe and comfortable community development, even in resource-constrained rural areas.