Mindell, JS;
Ergler, C;
Hopkins, D;
Mandic, S;
(2021)
Taking the bus? Barriers and facilitators for adolescent use of public buses to school.
Travel Behaviour and Society
, 22
pp. 48-58.
10.1016/j.tbs.2020.08.006.
Preview |
Text
1-s2.0-S2214367X20302052-main.pdf - Published Version Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Transport to school can contribute significantly to adolescents’ physical activity but in New Zealand – as in many other countries around the world – many adolescents are driven to school. Public transport offers an opportunity to integrate incidental active transport into school commutes. In this paper, we bring together multiple sources of data into a multi-method study to elucidate the barriers to and facilitators of public transport use by adolescents for school travel in Dunedin, New Zealand, a city with low rates of public transport use. The data include a public bus survey from Otago School Students Lifestyle Survey (OSSLS, 1391 adolescents); the Built Environment Active Transport to School (BEATS) Study parental survey (350 parents), focus groups (54 adolescents, 25 parents, 12 teachers) and semi-structured interviews (12 principals); interviews with three policy-makers from local/regional/national agencies; and analysis of 10 relevant local/regional/national strategies/transport plans. The findings show how distance to school, cost, parental trip chaining, built environment features, the weather, convenience, and safety perceptions are major barriers to using public transport to school. Moreover, current transport planning documents do not favour public health. A number of recommendations that could increase public transport use are made including: raising parking prices to discourage parents driving and trip-chaining; improving bus infrastructure and services; providing subsidies; and changing perceptions of public transport use and users. These actions, however, require collaboration between government authorities across the local, regional and national scale.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Taking the bus? Barriers and facilitators for adolescent use of public buses to school |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.tbs.2020.08.006 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2020.08.006 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Public buses, Adolescents, New Zealand, School travel, Active travel, Secondary schools |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10110073 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
