Mode of travel and the decision to allow children to walk or bike to schools—The Abu Dhabi experience ()
1. INTRODUCTION
No studies to date have examined factors associated with travel to school among Abu Dhabi children. Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates with a population of 1,967,659 according to the 2011 census. Abu Dhabi City accounts for 60.1% of the total population in the Emirate. With over 174,639 students (64% in public schools, and 36% in private schools) and 248 public and private schools (49% public schools, 51% private schools), Abu Dhabi is the largest Emirate in the United Arab Emirates. To keep pace with school demand, the government of Abu Dhabi built many new schools in the past 15 years (18 were built in 2010 and 2011 alone). The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) plans to build approximately 30 new schools over the next ten years.
Except for normal land offerings, the schools were built with little coordination between the local government, which approves new subdivisions, and Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) which is responsible for building new schools to meet the demand for additional capacity. Starting in 2007, the local government authorities worked towards requiring local government authorities to prepare comprehensive plans that address such specific issues as housing, transportation, and infrastructure. In addition, the government required that plans be consistent with overall planning goals.
In 2011, Abu Dhabi central government called for adopting development plans that required coordination between ADEC and either local government authorities, i.e. with the goal of fostering cooperative relationships to help align school planning with decisions about residential development and the provision of infrastructure. Under this understanding, government authorities and ADEC must adopt strategies that address school sitting, enrollment forecasting, school capacity, infrastructure, co-location, joint use of civic and school facilities, and processes for dispute resolution.
Recently worldwide, school sitting and student transportation decisions have received increased attention due to the rise in childhood obesity and the search for ways to stem this epidemic [1-4]. ADEC has set up plans in coordination with the Department of Transport—Abu Dhabi (DTAD) and the Health Authority in Abu Dhabi (HAAD) to promote active travel to school to help ensure health and transport policies translating into increased walking and cycling, with associated benefits for health and the environment. The three parties believe that active school travel could be a prime opportunity to increase children’s physical activity levels.
There is no data on active travel in Abu Dhabi to provide better planning. In June 2009, the three entities started work on an ambitious project to investigate school travel planning. The study aimed to identify what parents perceived as important determinants of students’ travel to school. An earlier report by DTAD identified several factors causing traffic pollutions in Abu Dhabi. Of concern to the study is the fact that all the factors contribute one way or another to the mode of children’s travel to school.
This research also forms the basis for identifying the most urgent areas of strategic improvements needed in Abu Dhabi, and to provide guidance for local authorities about how to work effectively with schools to promote more sustainable, safer and healthier patterns of travel. Even though the findings reported here have largely been derived from experience in Abu Dhabi City, it seems probable that many of the factors identified as being relevant to achieving and supporting more sustainable travel to school would also be relevant in other contexts and for other cities.
The Abu Dhabi community has never embraced an active travel culture. Until the writing of this research, there was not even a single file or document at the Ministry of Education, ADEC, DTAD or any of the (248) schools in Abu Dhabi related to walking or biking to school. Moreover, the researchers of this study checked with every school in Abu Dhabi, public or private as to whether anyone had ever designed a walk or bike to school brochure, organized an event dealing with walk or bike to school, or had been involved in any program dealing with the issue.
No record was found. Since its establishment in 1971, the Ministry or Education has never embraced the idea of actively encouraging a culture of active travel to school. This is also true with regard to ADEC. However, there are environmental awareness types of campaigns organized by the Abu Dhabi Environment Authority dealing with schools’ green issues and sustainability; but not directed for active travel to schools.
Results from this research could strengthen existing evidence and enhance efforts to promote active travel to school. Understanding the factors that influence children’s travel patterns is an essential first step in devising appropriate strategies to ensure their safety on the road, and the road environs. Several questions guided this research and related to Abu Dhabi:
• How do children get to and from school?
• What is the relationship between distance from home to school and mode of travel to school?
• What is the perception of road safety and built environment with regard to active travel to school?
• What is the perception of other important factors with regard to active travel to school?
• How present is the culture of active travel to school in the community?
• What are the significant travel factors affecting children’s mode of travel to school in Abu Dhabi?
• What are the significant demographic factors affecting the decision to allow children to walk or bike to school in Abu Dhabi?
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Since the current research designed a complete questionnaire derived from relevant previous work, it was deemed appropriate to present the literature background of the items used. Research to date fails to consider the potentially complex role of parent decision-making plays in controlling children’s travel behaviors and how environmental characteristics interact with these processes [5-7]. Future research with different settings may be particularly helpful for unraveling the complexities of school travel behavior [8].
2.1. Dependency on Cars
In a number of Western countries, dependency on car use is evident in research into modes of school travel. This trend has been noted with concern by environmental groups, health authorities and schools across many of these countries. Research in the UK [9-11], USA [12,13], Australia [14] and Canada [15] has indicated that the proportion of children being chauffeured to school by parents has increased over the past few decades.
2.2. Walking to School
Proportions of children walking to and from school range from 4.2% to 25.0% [16-23]. However, in some special cases where students go home for lunch, the proportion has reached 90% especially in Scandinavian countries [4,24,25]. The proportion of children walking and cycling to school varies considerably across countries [25,26]. In the United States, approximately 50 percent of children travel to school by car, with only 10% walking [27], whereas the majority of children walk or bike to school in Scandinavian countries [24,25]. Data from Australia, the US and the United Kingdom suggest active commuting to school to be on the decrease [20,23, 28].
2.3. Active Travel and Physical Activity
Research suggests that active commuting to school is an opportunity for children to achieve regular daily physical activity [2-4,10,29]. Many researchers believe that if more children walked or biked, it might be possible to lower children’s health risks [13,31,32]. Many studies have reported higher levels of physical activity in children [6,8] associated with active travel to school. In addition, regular participation in physical activity for young people can contribute to the enhancement of physical, psychological, and social well-being [29,33-35]; and may contribute to preventing excess weight gain [36,37].
Positive contributions from walking and biking to schools to children’s physical health have been the results of research in many countries, i.e., Russia [38]; the Philippines [30]; the US, [8]; and the UK [39].
McMillan [40] developed a conceptual framework to highlight factors that may influence parents’ decisions about how school children travel to school. Parents are assumed to make the ultimate decision about whether their child can walk to school or not. The decision may be influenced by perceptions of the physical and social environments which combine with attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of social norms about their child using active school travel. Within the framework, he identified an extensive array of correlates including demographic, individual and family factors, school factors, and social and physical environmental factors.
2.4. Active Travel and Distance
Researchers have studied many factors which influence walking or biking to school in children. Distance is shown to be a critical factor in children’s travel walk [41-47]. Studies in the United States [40,44,48-50], the United Kingdom [45], and Australia [46,50] have shown distance to be a critical factor in children’s travel. Others [46], note that those living within one mile of school are the most likely to walk. Travel time is an indirect reflection of distance. It is also a significant factor affecting students’ travel modes [47,51-53].
2.5. Traffic, Sidewalks and Safety
Many researches included factors such as perceived neighborhood aesthetics and characteristics, related to the presence of traffic lights, pedestrian crossing improvements, and walking or bicycle paths [7,46,54,55]. Ewing et al., [56] and Boarnet et al. [7] found a positive association between the presence and condition of sidewalks and children’s physical activity, while Mota et al. [1] found no association. The most significant determinants are perceived “stranger danger”, or danger of assault, and danger from increased traffic [51,57-59].
Factors negatively influencing walking or biking to school include parental perceptions of heavy traffic within their neighborhood [51]. In a study by Martin and Carlson [60], parents express concern about traffic dangers and the risk of abduction or harassment. The studies have shown that distance, traffic, and crime are three key factors preventing students from walking/biking to school [5,7,61]. Lack of pedestrian infrastructure such as sidewalks was sighted in many studies [7,42,62]. Some studies noted reduced schools’ roles have traditionally played in communities not accepting active travel to schools by parents [63].
2.6. Built Environment
The built environment appears to exert a significant effect on mode of travel to school [64]. Many studies examined the relationship between certain aspects of the built environment and choice of school travel mode [7,42, 43,45,54]. Around schools, car congestion during peak arrival and departure times creates a dangerous environment for those children who walk, cycle or catch public transport [7,59,69,70]. Research shows that in many countries, traffic jams connected to the school journey have created serious problems [11]. Driving children to school contributes to air pollution at a greater rate than longer urban trips [72].
There are no statistics in Abu Dhabi that directly categorizes sources of pollution in the morning or during other times of the day. There are many research studies that correlate mode of travel to school to personal or familial variables of children’s commuting behavior to school [46,47,54,73,74,76]. Research results have been inconsistent showing that boys are more likely to walk to school in comparison to girls [52,74,77-79], but not always [19,22,68,80]. Some found that girls are less likely to walk than boys with the differences being most prominent at younger ages [68,80] and in suburban areas [81, 82].
2.7. Personal and Demographic Factors
Literature review results also show that students’ travel behavior to school is affected by many potential factors such as household income and location [52,82]. Household factors such as car ownership and parents driving to work also affect mode choice [76]. With regard to children’s age, some findings show that younger children are more likely to walk to school [60]; while others show that older children are more likely to walk to school [20,22]. With regard to ethnic background, some research in the US noted that Hispanic and/or Black children are more likely to walk to school [22,51]. (Note: in this study we use nationality as a proxy to ethnic background). Household factors such as car ownership and parents driving to work also affect mode choice [76].
With regard to household income, studies show that mode of transportation is affected by household income [17]. In a study in Canada, [17] found that the proportion of students who walked to school was significantly higher among those whose income was less than $30,000. The percentage of students who used public transportation was significantly lower among the students who had a household income between $30,000 and $60,000 in comparison to the higher and lower groups.
The proportion of students who were driven to school was significantly higher among students whose household income was greater than $60,000 in comparison to the lower two income groups. There is evidence that the work status of parents is also associated with walking and biking to school [77,78]. Others showed that a small change in school starting time affected the travel patterns of every household member [84,85]. Travel models that incorporate household interactions have shown that the presence of children affects adult activity and travel scheduling. Research suggests that parental time constraints need to be addressed if policymakers hope to increase rates of active school travel [77,78,82].
The current study will be the first attempt to better understand the determinants of active travel to school in Abu Dhabi. In spite of referring to “community culture” indirectly in many studies relative to active travel to school [46,86], none of the research reviewed isolated the factor directly as a determinant of active travel to school. In addition, none tried to test the contribution of each of the different factors to the decision of parents of allowing children to actively travel to school. The current research will strictly take the views of parents with regard to mode of travel to school and the decision to allow children to walk or bike to school.
3. METHODS
3.1. Design and Development of the Survey
From extensive review of literature related to children’s travel to school, a survey consisting of 38 items was designed. The items were related to preference of parents to accompany the child to school, the culture of walking and biking to school, the environmental factors, the distance factors (minimum distance and actual distance), the safety factors (community conditions, traffic conditions, and road conditions), safety factors, the infrastructure of roads and lands to school, the school efforts in teaching about walking and biking to school, the form of walking and biking (walking or biking in a group), child’s peers attitude towards walking or biking, and parents’ beliefs of the benefits of walking and biking. Two items were also added to reflect the decision of parents to allow their children to walk or bike to schools.
A focus group of 14 members was invited to a meeting that took 3 hours of discussions. The focus group consisted of Head of Research in ADEC, Head of School Operations in ADEC, 6 parents, 4 school principals and a representative of the Abu Dhabi Road & Transport Authorities. The results of the literature searches were presented to the group. Each item was discussed for its suitability in the Abu Dhabi study. Most of the parents in the focus group insisted that even with most travel to school factors being “satisfied”, parents might not let their children walk or bike to school. They insisted that the questionnaire should contain questions regarding the “absence of the culture of walking or biking to school in Abu Dhabi”. They noted that many parents perceived walking or biking to school in Abu Dhabi as “not a normal habit”, and that other children or peers might make fun of them if they walked or biked to school. As a result, two items were added related to the culture of walking and the culture of biking to school in Abu Dhabi. In addition, two items were added related to the children’s feelings that their peers might make fun of them if they walked or biked to school.
Many items were deleted from the survey to make it shorter. A total of 28 items remained in the final draft of the survey. Parents were asked to state their opinion as to level of agreement with each statement on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Face validity of the survey was established by developing the survey based on a comprehensive review of the current literature. After designing the final instrument, a panel of researchers and the ADEC School Guardian Committee reviewed the survey and determined content validity.
To establish stability and reliability, the hard copy instrument was conducted with 32 parents from one district in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (Al Karama) and then repeated one week later. The results yielded a mean correlation of 0.927. Scale reliability was measured using the Cronbach alpha coefficient of reliability for the scales in the survey. Results of these analyses showed that the alphas for the different scales were acceptable [Decision to allow children to walk or bike to school (0.751), safety (road conditions, 0.802), safety (community conditions, 0.722), safety (traffic conditions, 0.718), environmental factors (0.778), minimum distance to school (0.778), actual distance to school (one item only), belief of parents of health benefits of walking or biking to school (0.802), road and school infrastructure and facilities (0.707), walking to school in groups (0.849), school teaching about active travel to school (0.712), culture of walking or biking (0.961), and children’s peer’s reaction to walking and biking (0.885)].
The questionnaire further included questions about the child and the parent completing it. It included child’s gender, nationality, grade level at school, school type, parent’s highest academic education, number of children, family income level, and the number of cars in the household. Some questions also requested information about mode of transportation (taxi, school bus, public bus, car with a friend, car with parents, biking, walking), distance from school (8 choices ranging from less than 1 kilometer to more than 20 kilometers), time to school (8 choices ranging from less than 5 minutes to more than 60 minutes), number of cars owned by the family.
3.2. Participants
The participants for this study were parents of children of public and private schools in the City of Abu Dhabi. Parents of all public and private schools were invited to participate in this study. The survey was available for three weeks online on the ADEC website. A total of 1344 parents participated in the study. However, many questionnaires were not completed fully. A total of 1145 usable questionnaires were utilized for this study. Students’ ages ranged from 4 to 18 years of age. They attended KG levels to Grade 12.
3.3. Study Hypotheses
For each scale, the summated score will be used in further analysis. Simple descriptive statistics will be computed for all constructs. To answer the questions raised by this study and related to factors affecting the mode of transportation to use to travel school, several hypotheses are proposed.
H1: Decision to allow children to walk or bike has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H2: Safety (road conditions) has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H3: Safety (community conditions) has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H4: Safety (traffic conditions) has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H5: Environmental factors have significant effect on mode of transportation.
H6: Minimum distance to school has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H7: Actual distance to school has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H8: Belief of parents of health benefits of walking or biking to school has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H9: Roads’ and schools’ infrastructure and facilities have significant effect on mode of transportation.
H10: Walking to school in groups has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H11: School teaching about active travel to school has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H12: Culture of walking or biking to school has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H13: Children’s peer’s reaction to walking and biking has significant effect on mode of transportation.
H14: Preference to accompany child to school has significant effect on mode of transportation.
To explore the effect of familial and demographic features on the decision of parents to allow the child to walk or bike to school eight hypotheses were proposed.
H15: Parent’s gender has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H16: Child’s gender has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H17: Child’s grade level has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H18: Parent’s highest academic degree attainment has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H19: Family income has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H20: Type of school has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H21: Number of cars per household has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H22: Parent’s nationality has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
H23: Number of children in the family has significant effect on decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
3.4. Analysis Methods
For the familial and demographic factors, descriptive statistics will be provided. Descriptive statistics will also be provided for the factors affecting the mode of travel to school. For H1 to H14, a series of ANOVA runs will be performed for each of the scales with regard to mode of transportation to school. In addition, for H15 to H23, further ANOVA tests will be carried out to test the effect of other demographic factors on the decision to allow the child to walk or bike to school.
4. RESULTS
4.1. Mode of Travel to School
Figure 1 shows most common modes of travel to school. Results show that the two most commonly used mode of transportation to school are by car (45%) and by the school bus (38.1%). Walking (6.8%) or biking (2.5%) to school combined, account for (9.4%) only. There are also portions of children that use public transportation such as taxis (2.3%) and buses (5.2%). For those who walk or bike to school, we note that 85% of them take less than 30 minutes to get to school, and some of them (14%) live further than 5 kilometers from the school. In addition, 54% of them are UAE nationals, 14% are from other Arab nationalities, while 13.1% are westerners. We also note that 73.6% of them are boys. There is no obvious pattern as to which age (grade level) walks or bikes more often; however, more children from grade 1, 2 and 3 walk or bike to school. Most of these children live in closed residential compounds not too far from their schools and with less traffic encountered during the travel to school. It is noted that 55.1% of this category of children attend private schools. Further analysis show that for those that take taxis to school, more than 46% of them live 30 minutes or more away from the school. For those children that have to travel less than 3 kilometers to get to the school (27.2%), only 24.1% of them walk or bike to school, while 49.8% of them ride a car to school, and 20.6% take the school bus. It is noted also that 94.9% of those children reach school in less than 30 minutes. It should be noted, too, that all of the families in this category own 1 car at least. About 54.2% of the children are UAE nationals, and 59.9% of them are boys. In addition, 49.3% of them attend grades 1, 2 or 3 and about 20% attend grade 9 or above. It should be noted also that 62.8% of them attend private schools. About 65.3 percent of the children travel less than 10 kilometers. Travel to school takes at least 20 minutes for 51.9% of the children. It takes less than 30 minutes for 73.4% of the children. On average, most families have 1 or 2 cars (61.8%). Most parents have bachelor degrees (43.4%), while 38.2% hold less than a college degree. Male parents account for 51% of the respondents; and male children account for 58.3% of the total children. Parents, whose children attend private schools, account for 69.1 percent of the total number of parents. Most parents participating in the survey are from the UAE (45.3%), and from other Arab countries (29.9%). Only 7.5% parents come from Europe, North America or other Western countries.