Gong, Yi;
Mackett, Roger L;
(2011)
Visualizing childrens walking behaviour using portable global positioning (GPS) units and activity monitors.
In: Lin, Hui and Batty, Michael, (eds.)
Virtual Geographic Environments.
Esri Press
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Abstract
Previous behavioural research involving walking has mainly focused on the personal and social factors that can affect physical activity. More recently, studies have been increasing which argue that the built environment has also strong impacts on personal physical activity level, although there is a poor understanding between urban form and physical activity association in children. Nowadays children enjoy less freedom in the urban setting than previously, and it is becoming clear that less independence and mobility constrain children’s development. A decline of children’s physical activity level is also apparent, which parallels the increase of overweight / obesity and sedentary activities. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand better children’s movement patterns as users of the built environment. In these studies, traditional methodologies (e.g. observation, self-reported, questionnaire and so on) are difficult to use in accurately investigating children’s outdoor movement. However state-of-art portable Global Positioning System (GPS) technology has made studies of children’s outdoor movement possible. In our study, nearly 160 children from 2 local primary schools in the British town of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire have been monitored over a period of four days from September 2005 to June 2006 by fitting children with portable GPS Units and energy monitors. In this paper, 3D geovisualisation is shown to be a very effective tool to display the local travel that children make on foot, the places children go to, and the places where children are most physically active. Children’s daily movement pathways are then characterized using a variety of measures, such as gender, age, energy expense, land use location, turning angles, travelling speed and so on. The results shown in this paper indicate how children interact differently with their local environment when they are with adults and or other children and compare these to activity when they play alone. In this way, the level of energy expended under different circumstances can be visualised.
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