Evaluation and Optimization of Walkability of Children’s School Travel Road for Accessibility and Safety Improvement

(1) Background: In the context of a children friendly city, accessibility and safety are the basic needs of children’s pedestrian school travel. This study proposes a comprehensive evaluation method of pedestrian accessibility and safety for children’s school travel. (2) Methods: Firstly, the school travel network was constructed by simulating the path of children walking to school. Secondly, from the meso and micro dimensions, the impact factors of pedestrian accessibility and safety were combed out, and an evaluation index system was constructed. Finally, pedestrian accessibility and safety were evaluated based on the Space Syntax analysis and ArcGIS spatial analysis, and the results were superimposed and spatially differentiated. The new evaluation method was tested in the Jintang Road area in Hedong District, Tianjin, China. (3) Results: The pedestrian accessibility and safety of children’s school travel road in the study area needed to be improved. It was found that the main impact factors were the effective walking width, the spatial connectivity, the visual integration, the obstruction of pedestrian safety, the completeness of crossing facilities and the influence of traffic flow and put forward optimization strategies. After optimized simulation verification, the overall improvement was achieved. (4) Conclusion: The evaluation method is helpful to calculate the pedestrian accessibility and safety of children’s school travel, and help decision makers determine the design and management strategies of child-friendly streets.

Segmenting children’s active school travel behaviour: insights on caregivers’ perceived risks and social norms

PurposeActive school travel (AST) programmes aim to change commuting behaviour to improve children's physical and mental health. However, very limited health education programmes for children use segmentation to create tailored solutions that understand the specific characteristics of each group of children and their caregivers in order to yield better results. The aim of this study is to use a statistical segmentation analysis (two-step cluster analysis) to gain insights on the examination of specific groups to design future health education interventions and campaigns that can improve children's health.Design/methodology/approachGuided by the Ecological and Cognitive Active Commuting (ECAC) framework, a market segmentation analysis was performed. An online survey was designed to collect data from caregivers of children between 5 and 12 years attending school and responsible for taking the child to and/or from school in Victoria and Queensland, Australia. Using 3,082 responses collected from Australian caregivers of primary school children, a two-step cluster analysis was performed.FindingsAnalysis revealed the most important variables for group formation were previous child walking behaviour, distance from school and caregiver income. Perceived risk of the physical environment was the most important psychographic segmentation variable for group formation, followed by social norms. Four distinct groups with different characteristics were identified from the analysis.Originality/valueThis is the first study that applies the ECAC framework to perform market segmentation in the AST context. Results revealed four market segments that demand different tailored solutions. Findings shed light on how to better design AST interventions and campaigns to promote children's health using segmentation techniques.

Associations of neighborhood built, safety, and social environment with walking to and from school among elementary school-aged children in Chiba, Japan

Background Although it is globally known that Japan has high prevalence of active school travel among children, there are few international studies on Japanese children’s school travel. Moreover, only few studies have focused on the differences in their mode of travel between to-school and from-school. This study examined the associations of neighborhood built, safety, and social environments with walking to/from school among elementary school-aged children in Chiba, Japan. Methods We conducted an online survey with 1545 parents of children aged 6–12 years residing in Chiba between 25 and 27 November 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. A neighborhood was defined as the area of a postcode provided by the participants. Each neighborhood environment was assessed based on the built environment (new town designation, walkability, distance to school, population density), social environment (neighborhood cohesion and connection), and safety (CCTVs, a road section for walking alone, safety volunteers). Neighborhood walkability was measured using subscales of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (youth and abbreviated versions) including crime safety and traffic safety. Parents’ perceived influence of COVID-19 on school commuting and after-school activities were also included in the model as covariates. Walking to and from school were separately analyzed using multinomial logistic regressions, where new towns and walkability were computed separately as explanatory variables. Results Four fifths of children walked to and from school daily. Walking to school was positively associated with crime safety, neighborhood connections, and schools sited in new towns. Walking from school had positive associations with traffic safety, neighborhood cohesion, and CCTVs, but negative associations with safety volunteers and after-school activities. The presence of a section for walking alone and perceived influence of COVID-19 had negative associations with walking to and from school. Conclusions Recent social changes such as declining birthrate, decline in public elementary schools, and increasing after-school activities may change parental attitudes toward children’s walking to/from school, and subsequently, their mode of school travel over time. To maintain the high prevalence of walking to/from school in Japan, multidisciplinary approaches involving different stakeholders from education, public health, and urban planning are required to overcome sectionalism and support this behavior in the long term.

School Travel Inequity between Students from Public and Private Schools in the City of Shenzhen, China

Understanding school travel inequities and promoting active travel policies more effectively is an increasingly important issue in the international transport policy agenda. Using the dataset of the 2014 Shenzhen primary and secondary school travel survey, this study empirically revealed the permanent residence permit (hukou) system in the context of China shapes the evident inequities between students from public schools and private schools. Students without a legitimated hukou to local areas suffer from more constraints, longer distances, and more time to access private schools which are excluded from the public sponsorship and have disadvantages in geographical locations. Applying the ordered logistic model, this study specifically investigated the influential factors of school commuting travel mode. Household vehicle ownership and travel features (i.e., chauffeuring and home-school distance) have a much more significant role in school travel mode decisions, which largely surpassed the role individual demographic attributes and the school surrounding built environment play. The implications of this study shed light on making more specific strategies for private schools to mitigate mobility inequity imposed on disadvantaged students.

Factors Influencing Cycling among Secondary School Adolescents in an Ethnically Diverse City: The Perspective of Birmingham Transport Stakeholders

Despite strategies and schemes to increase cycling among adolescents in England, the levels of cycling among secondary school adolescents in various cities is low. This study aims to understand the factors influencing cycling among Birmingham secondary school adolescents from the perspectives of local transport stakeholders promoting cycling among secondary school adolescents. In 2019, 14 local transport stakeholders promoting cycling among secondary school adolescents in Birmingham participated in a semi-structured interview. The discussions focused on barriers and facilitators to increasing cycling among secondary school adolescents for school and non-school travel. Thematic content analysis was performed using NVIVO 12. The five-level socio-ecological model provided the framework for the analysis, resulting in five main themes. The study found the majority of the schemes and programs organised to increase cycling among secondary school adolescents focused on promoting school travel, with less focus on non-school travel. It was noted that cycling for leisure was more appealing to adolescents than utility cycling. Future interventions should include cycling promotion for non-school travel. In addition, increased support for leisure cycling may increase the overall appeal and enthusiasm of cycling among adolescents.