Children's independent travel to and from primary school: Evidence from a suburban town in Germany

The paper studies the factors that contribute to understand children's independent travel – i.e. not being escorted by an adult – to and from primary school in Germany. Binary logit regression is employed, and the data used are taken from a survey among parents of children in seven schools in a medium-sized suburban town. This is the first paper from Germany that simultaneously looks at the full range of dimensions that may help understand children's independent travel: (1) trip characteristics, (2) child characteristics, (3) the household context, (4) subjective concerns, attitudes and perceptions, (5) the transport environment, (6) the built environment and (7) the social environment. In contrast to the majority of studies in the field, an attempt was made to capture a holistic picture of the transport and land-use environment along the route, while at the same time some key attributes of the route were used as separate variables. Perhaps the most notable contribution to research is the distinct differences that we found between outward and return trips. While the morning trip was characterised by distinct impacts of the built and transport environment, most variables turned out insignificant in the afternoon model. Conversely, more attitudinal dimensions turned out significant in the return trip. Some of our findings are clearly relevant for policy. For instance, traffic calming is associated with higher levels of independent travel, while routes characterised by industry and trade, high-speed roads, and zebra-crossings that need to be crossed are associated with lower levels of independent travel. The effects of perceptions and attitudes we find can be taken as starting points for soft policies such as awareness campaigns or traffic education.