New technology developed by a butterfly enthusiast is being used by Oxford schoolchildren to cut road accidents.

And WildKey, the company behind the program, hopes it will eventually allow pupils to get their lessons via mobile phones.

Pupils at Windmill School, Headington, are using the WildKey handheld computer system to collect travel-to-school data.

Headteacher Lynn Knapp said: "We have a big problem with parents parking on double-yellow lines and we have had some near-misses.

"The survey will show how people have arrived and allow us to draw up an action plan."

WildKey was developed two years ago by butterfly enthusiast Neil Bailey and his Oxford Brookes University colleague, ecologist Stewart Thompson, to identify wildlife.

Popular with amateur and professional naturalists, it has been used at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Kew Gardens and the Edinburgh Botanical Garden.

It asks a series of questions, then provides photographs so users can match the species.

Now the system has been adapted to provide questions for the Windmill School travel survey. The answers will go into a database so that the school can draw up a green travel plan.

Dr Bailey said: "We have diversified, because wildlife is quite a niche market.

"We discovered that if you want to get into schools, you need to have the geography teacher and the art teacher on board as well.

"Now teachers can create their own quiz for the pupils, or a discovery trail, which links to a power point presentation, for example."

The Global Positioning System (GPS) can track each child's movement and produce relevant questions or information on the screen, or even a short video for each point on the trail. The children themselves can create their own trail.

WildKey raised more than £100,000 from investors at Oxford's Venturefest conference to move from the university into start-up premises in St Clements. Dr Bailey said they now had five staff and would be taking on one more.

Next, he aims to put the system on to mobile phones, which are taking over from handheld computers.

"At the moment, schools have a problem with mobiles, but it's easy to block calls, and our software can be loaded on to the phone, using a server, so you are not restricted to the phone memory. Then it's anytime, anywhere learning," he said.