Changes in travel behavior during the transition from secondary to higher education: A case study from Ghent, Belgium

Abstract

Over the past few decades, the number of students attending universities and university colleges in Belgium has increased considerably. In many Western countries, this trend is accompanied by a decline in car use among young adults. Therefore, it is important to have better insights into how travel behavior changes during the transition from secondary to higher education. This research fits into the larger framework of mobility biographies, where travel behavior is analyzed over a life course, taking into account certain life events. Hierarchical logistic regressions are used to analyze car use data for mandatory activities (going to school and grocery shopping) and leisure activities (fun shopping) of 404 first-year university and university college students in Ghent (Belgium). The results indicate that holding a driver’s license or owning a car facilitates car use irrespective of students’ residential location and lifestyle, and this is true for all activities. The built environment only seems to become an important factor explaining car use when students are attending university or university college. The influence of lifestyles appears to become somewhat more important for leisure activities, such as fun shopping. The emerging lifestyle of students appears to become more individual and more independent from the lifestyle of others, especially the parents. This is supported by the declining influence of social networks, notably the family.

Factors Associated with Travel Behavior of Millennials and Older Adults: A Scoping Review

“…As expected, holding a driver's license or owning a car facilitates car use among young adults [30,47,79]. The number of cars in the household [29,70] and bike ownership [29] are positively associated with driver's license possession of young adults, indicating multimodality among young adults.…”

“…Furthermore, among young adults, employed young adults are more likely to drive [2,24], hold a driver's license [55,70,73,74,77], have car access/ownership [23,54], make a greater number of car trips [24], and have higher car travel distance [78]. Higher education positively influences driver's license possession [55,70,73,74,77] and driving [2,79]. Studentship status shows a positive association with transit use [27,58].…”

“…Young adults living in urban areas are more likely to walk and use transit [3,26,33,57,84], make fewer trips [33,49], have lower rates of automobile access/ownership [3,18,33,70,78], show a lower probability of holding a driver's license [3,33,70], and are less likely to drive [2,33,57,78,84] as compared to older generations. On the other hand, due to homogenous land-use patterns, rural living encourages possession of a driver's license [55], car use/driving [26,75,79], and higher driving distance [55]. The study by Nash and Mitra [30] revealed that young adults mostly prefer to live in areas that best suit their transport mode choice.…”

Factors Contributing to Student Fortitude in Distance Learning (Descriptive Study at AKPER Giri Satria Husada Wonogiri)

“…Based on the results of the output in table 5, the R squared value of 0.554 is obtained, which means that the influence of variables X1, X2, X3, and X4 on student resilience (Y) is 70.2% and the remaining 29.8% is influenced by other variables outside of this research model. Indirect effects can be analyzed by structural model equations (SEM) because SEM is considered as a unit of simultaneous estimates in regression when an independent variable in one regression and at the same time becomes a dependent variable in another regression [17].…”

Assessing the relationships between young adults’ travel and use of the internet over time

“…De Paepe et al, 2018;De Vos et al, 2012;Handy et al, 2004). Similar to the relationship between Internet use and pro-environmental behavior, the overall associations between sustained daily Internet usage and young adults' travel patterns are largely explained by their indirect correlations mediated by a positive attitude towards the environment.…”