IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i23p13213-d690634.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Students’ and Parents’ Perceptions of Barriers to Cycling to School—An Analysis by Gender

Author

Listed:
  • Ross Higgins

    (Science & Engineering Faculty, School of Engineering, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
    School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering and Architecture, University College Dublin, Belfield Dublin 4, Ireland)

  • Aoife Ahern

    (School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering and Architecture, University College Dublin, Belfield Dublin 4, Ireland)

Abstract

Internationally, there is increased emphasis on the need to reduce dependency on cars and to encourage more sustainable forms of travel, including active travel. To encourage increased levels of cycling, the focus has generally been on improving cycling infrastructure and on making cycling safer. While cycling rates have increased in many countries, including Ireland, women are often less likely to cycle than men. While there are some notable exceptions to this (for example, in the Netherlands) this phenomenon of lower cycling rates amongst women is common and research shows that the differences between male and female cycling rates can be seen from an early age. This paper explores the reasons why women are less likely to cycle than men, by examining the modal choices of school-going students, and the attitudes of their parents/guardians to their modal choices. The survey was conducted in the city of Limerick in the midwestern region of Ireland. The results show multi-factorial barriers to cycling to school for girls compared to boys. Uniforms, traffic concerns, physical efforts of cycling, effects on personal appearance, and peer-influences were factors affecting girls more than boys. Male parents/guardians did not significantly differentiate by the gender of their children in relation to factors associated with cycling to school, unlike female parents/guardians who were found to be significantly less supportive of their daughters than their sons. Additionally, parents/guardians were generally more likely to afford their male children greater independence in their school travel choices. While there are many considerations that would affect students’ perceptions towards cycling, an adjustment to the school uniform policy would, at least, remove the most significant barrier for girls. Further research must be carried out to determine how to shift the perceptions of the efforts associated with cycling, especially among girls, and how to encourage female parents/guardians to better support their daughters to cycle to school.

Suggested Citation

  • Ross Higgins & Aoife Ahern, 2021. "Students’ and Parents’ Perceptions of Barriers to Cycling to School—An Analysis by Gender," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-16, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13213-:d:690634
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13213/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13213/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fyhri, Aslak & Hjorthol, Randi, 2009. "Children’s independent mobility to school, friends and leisure activities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 377-384.
    2. Rachel Aldred & Bridget Elliott & James Woodcock & Anna Goodman, 2017. "Cycling provision separated from motor traffic: a systematic review exploring whether stated preferences vary by gender and age," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 29-55, January.
    3. Carroll, Paraic & Caulfield, Brian & Ahern, Aoife, 2019. "Modelling the potential benefits of increased active travel," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 82-92.
    4. Carroll, James & Brazil, William & Morando, Bruno & Denny, Eleanor, 2020. "What drives the gender-cycling-gap? Census analysis from Ireland," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 95-102.
    5. Motoaki, Yutaka & Daziano, Ricardo A., 2015. "A hybrid-choice latent-class model for the analysis of the effects of weather on cycling demand," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 217-230.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hossain Mohiuddin & Md Musfiqur Rahman Bhuiya & Shaila Jamal & Zhi Chen, 2022. "Exploring the Choice of Bicycling and Walking in Rajshahi, Bangladesh: An Application of Integrated Choice and Latent Variable (ICLV) Models," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-20, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rupi, Federico & Freo, Marzia & Poliziani, Cristian & Postorino, Maria Nadia & Schweizer, Joerg, 2023. "Analysis of gender-specific bicycle route choices using revealed preference surveys based on GPS traces," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Humberto, Mateus & Moura, Filipe & Giannotti, Mariana, 2020. "Incorporating children's views and perceptions about urban mobility," OSF Preprints yjxfm, Center for Open Science.
    3. Zwerts, Enid & Allaert, Georges & Janssens, Davy & Wets, Geert & Witlox, Frank, 2010. "How children view their travel behaviour: a case study from Flanders (Belgium)," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 702-710.
    4. Wessel, Jan, 2020. "Using weather forecasts to forecast whether bikes are used," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 537-559.
    5. Bernadeta Gołębiowska & Anna Bartczak & Mikołaj Czajkowski, 2020. "Energy Demand Management and Social Norms," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-20, July.
    6. Buttazzoni, Adrian N. & Coen, Stephanie E. & Gilliland, Jason A., 2018. "Supporting active school travel: A qualitative analysis of implementing a regional safe routes to school program," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 181-190.
    7. Isabel Marzi & Anne Kerstin Reimers, 2018. "Children’s Independent Mobility: Current Knowledge, Future Directions, and Public Health Implications," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-15, November.
    8. Gustavo García-Melero & Rubén Sainz-González & Pablo Coto-Millán & Alejandra Valencia-Vásquez, 2021. "Sustainable Mobility Policy Analysis Using Hybrid Choice Models: Is It the Right Choice?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-16, March.
    9. Raktim Mitra & Guy EJ Faulkner & Ron N Buliung & Michelle R Stone, 2014. "Do parental perceptions of the neighbourhood environment influence children’s independent mobility? Evidence from Toronto, Canada," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(16), pages 3401-3419, December.
    10. Broberg, Anna & Sarjala, Satu, 2015. "School travel mode choice and the characteristics of the urban built environment: The case of Helsinki, Finland," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-10.
    11. João De Abreu e Silva, 2018. "The Effects of Land-Use Patterns on Home-Based Tour Complexity and Total Distances Traveled: A Path Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-16, March.
    12. Kunbo Shi & Long Cheng & Jonas De Vos & Yongchun Yang & Wanpeng Cao & Frank Witlox, 2021. "How does purchasing intangible services online influence the travel to consume these services? A focus on a Chinese context," Transportation, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 2605-2625, October.
    13. Kim, Seheon & Rasouli, Soora, 2022. "The influence of latent lifestyle on acceptance of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS): A hierarchical latent variable and latent class approach," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 304-319.
    14. Zhang, Xiang & Li, Wence, 2023. "Effects of a bike sharing system and COVID-19 on low-carbon traffic modal shift and emission reduction," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 42-64.
    15. Hong, Jinhyun & Philip McArthur, David & Stewart, Joanna L., 2020. "Can providing safe cycling infrastructure encourage people to cycle more when it rains? The use of crowdsourced cycling data (Strava)," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 109-121.
    16. Elise Desjardins & Christopher D. Higgins & Darren M. Scott & Emma Apatu & Antonio Páez, 2022. "Correlates of bicycling trip flows in Hamilton, Ontario: fastest, quietest, or balanced routes?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 867-895, June.
    17. Yazdanpanah, Mahdi & Hosseinlou, Mansour Hadji, 2016. "The influence of personality traits on airport public transport access mode choice: A hybrid latent class choice modeling approach," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 147-163.
    18. Bernadeta Gołębiowska & Anna Bartczak & Mikołaj Czajkowski, 2020. "Energy demand management and social norms – the case study in Poland," Working Papers 2020-25, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    19. Susilo, Yusak O. & Waygood, E. Owen D., 2012. "A long term analysis of the mechanisms underlying children’s activity-travel engagements in the Osaka metropolitan area," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 41-50.
    20. Russell, Marie & Davies, Cheryl & Wild, Kirsty & Shaw, Caroline, 2021. "Pedalling towards equity: Exploring women's cycling in a New Zealand city," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:23:p:13213-:d:690634. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.