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Urban School Travel – Understanding the Critical Factors Affecting Parent’s Choices

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Advances in Mobility-as-a-Service Systems (CSUM 2020)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1278))

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Abstract

Travelling to and from school forms mobility habits and travel behavior aspects of students from a very young age, also adopted in later life. Parents are the key players of the whole mode choice process as in most cases they are the ones to decide how and by which transport mode their children will complete their everyday school trips. Understanding parents’ perceptions on different travel modes and studying the motives behind the mode choice decision in school trips, is a rather essential issue as it may provide useful information to policy-makers, transport and spatial planners on how to overcome possible barriers and difficulties in order to satisfactory cover all students’ future mobility needs. The paper provides an extensive literature review regarding a wide range of factors found to influence students’ travel, following a statistical exploratory factor analysis of a questionnaire survey took place in Thessaloniki, Greece. The initial analysis of the sample identifies key themes while it also develops a comprehensive picture of caregivers’ experiences about travel mode choice to school in a typical Greek urban environment. Some interesting findings verify that socio-economic and household demographic factors, built-environment variables, and parents’ attitudes regarding their daily trips and mobility habits, are important factors affecting the school mode choice procedure.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hellenic Institute of Transport, 6th km Charilaou-Thermi Road, 57001, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Kornilia Maria Kotoula & Georgia Ayfantopoulou

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100, Xanthi, Greece

    George Botzoris & Vassilios Profillidis

Authors
  1. Kornilia Maria Kotoula
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  2. George Botzoris
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  3. Georgia Ayfantopoulou
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  4. Vassilios Profillidis
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Correspondence to Kornilia Maria Kotoula .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Eftihia G. Nathanail

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Giannis Adamos

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Ioannis Karakikes

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Kotoula, K.M., Botzoris, G., Ayfantopoulou, G., Profillidis, V. (2021). Urban School Travel – Understanding the Critical Factors Affecting Parent’s Choices. In: Nathanail, E.G., Adamos, G., Karakikes, I. (eds) Advances in Mobility-as-a-Service Systems. CSUM 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1278. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61075-3_88

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61075-3_88

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-61074-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-61075-3

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