IN-PERSON Manchester Livable Cities

Abstract

Although home-school trips play a central role in children’s daily mobility, evidence shows a decline in the use of sustainable travel modes for these trips. Previous research has highlighted the importance of environmental, socioeconomic, and safety-related factors in children’s mode choice. However, most studies fail to consider how these factors vary in places with different urbanization patterns or that children may use combinations of modes (e.g., bicycle-train). This study addresses these gaps by analyzing 47,830 home-school trips by Danish students (ages 5-16) and accompanying parents using three years of national travel survey data. Additionally, parent perception data on children’s transport safety was collected from three schools through the Green Mobility Shift project. Municipalities in Greater Copenhagen were classified into four urbanization types using K-means clustering: saturated urban (very high density), urban (high density), suburban (medium density), and rural (low density). Multinomial logit estimates revealed that distance significantly influenced mode choice. Longer trips reduced walking and cycling, while increasing motorized and multimodal travel. Additionally, models showed significant mode choice heterogeneity across clusters. Saturated urban and urban areas showed increased walking, cycling, and train use. Conversely, suburban and rural areas showed strong car dependence, despite about half of trips being 5-km or shorter. These areas also showed higher probabilities of bus and multimodal transportation (bicycle–train, bus–train), highlighting the need for quality multimodal connections and competitive public transportation.

Future work will integrate socioeconomic variables and parental safety perceptions to explain these mobility patterns, providing essential insights for targeted sustainable transport policies.