How Does Attending a Non-local School Affect Travel, Exercise and Community Connections? Influences of the Built Environment, Social Norms and Community Isolation

Sustainable travel is composed of three pillars: environmental, societal, and economic. An important aspect of the societal pillar is the impact on children. Compact development can facilitate non-motorized and independent local travel and combined with mass transit can provide for independent non-local travel, which is environmentally sustainable. However, no matter the development style, a decision may be made to send children to non-local schools. If travel is through mass transit, it may be considered environmentally sustainable, but how does sending a child to a non-local school affect other aspects of their life such as independent travel, time spent traveling, exercise, and community connections? Children's development is not only related to school, but also to play and social interaction. This research investigates those aspects of a childfs life for children attending local schools, non-local schools, and non-indigenous culture non-local schools. Travel to non-local schools will decrease non-motorized travel overall, but in what way and how does that affect travel on non-school days? If more time is spent traveling, do they participate in vigorous activities less? If the children have less local travel and are attending a non-local school, will the frequency of seeing known people decrease? Those questions are researched in the Osaka Metropolitan Area which is a compact, transit-oriented built environment. Analysis of variance is used to establish significant differences across the different schools, and correlation is used to examine the influence of the built environment, social norms, and other factors.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Waygood, E Owen D
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 89th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2010-1-10 to 2010-1-14
• Date: 2010

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 89th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Built environment; Economic and social factors; Public transit; Schools; Social factors; Sustainable transportation; Transit operating agencies
• Uncontrolled Terms: Social norms
• Geographic Terms: Osaka (Japan)
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01157041
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 10-0479
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 24 2010 2:08PM