Active travel to school: Understanding the Ghanaian context of the underlying driving factors and the implications for transport planning

The impact of Covid-19 on children's active travel to school in Vietnam

“…Unfortunately, international studies generally report relatively low and declining rates of active travel to school (see, among others, Fyhri et al, 2011 on Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Great Britain; van der Ploeg et al, 2008 on Australia; McDonald et al, 2011 on the US; Costa et al, 2012 on Brazil; Trang et al, 2012 on Vietnam; Leung and Loo, 2020 on Hong Kong). Places such as Albania ( Pojani and Boussauw, 2014 ) and Ghana ( Siiba, 2020 ), which retain very high rates of active school travel, are outliers. However, they too may have been impacted by Covid-19.…”

“…Generally, boys are more likely to walk or cycle to school compared with girls ( Babey et al, 2009 ; Larsen et al, 2009 ; Siiba, 2020 ) because parents are generally more protective of girls while allowing boys to be more independent ( Brown et al, 2008 ; Foster et al, 2014 ; Fyhri and Hjorthol, 2009 ; Mackett et al, 2007 ; Prezza et al, 2001 ). However, some studies report that gender is not a significant variable ( Carver et al, 2019 ; Leung and Loo, 2020 ; Pojani and Boussauw, 2014 ; Potoglou and Arslangulova, 2017 ).…”

“…However, some studies report that gender is not a significant variable ( Carver et al, 2019 ; Leung and Loo, 2020 ; Pojani and Boussauw, 2014 ; Potoglou and Arslangulova, 2017 ). With regard to age, studies tend to find that older children are more likely to engage in AST ( Leung and Loo, 2020 ; Potoglou and Arslangulova, 2017 ; Siiba, 2020 ) whereas very young children are more often driven to school by adults.…”

“…Mothers, who are short on time (e.g., because they work full-time), tend to allow their children to travel to school independently – which often translates into AST ( Han et al, 2019 ). But in some cases, busy mothers with full-time jobs, who refuse to allow children to walk or cycle on their own, will drive them to school in order to save time ( Potoglou and Arslangulova, 2017 ; Siiba, 2020 ). In addition to time poverty, parental attitudes around traffic safety and security from crime and harassment have a strong influence on whether children walk or cycle to school ( Hsu and Saphores, 2014 ).…”

“…A large home-school distance is one of the strongest barriers to AST whereas short home-school distances are known to promote walking and cycling ( McDonald, 2008 ; Singh and Vasudevan, 2018 ; Babey et al, 2009 ; Larsen et al, 2009 ; Stewart et al, 2012 ; Easton and Ferrari, 2015 ). For this reason, urban children tend to engage in AST more than rural children ( Potoglou and Arslangulova, 2017 ; Siiba, 2020 ). In some cities, school consolidation is leading to more spread out locations, thereby increasing home-school distances and undermining AST ( Fyhri et al, 2011 ).…”