PARENTAL ATTITUDES TO CHILDREN'S JOURNEYS TO SCHOOL

Abstract

The growth in accompanied travel to school has been one of the most pronounced changes in travel behaviour over the last 20 years. Hillman et al. (1990) have noted how the proportion of seven-eight year old children who travel independently to school in England has declined from 80 per cent in 1971 to 9 per cent in 1990. A full understanding of parental views on the journey to school is required if policy makers wish to encourage parents to behave differently. The implication of Hillman et al.'s finding is that, since traffic danger is of prime significance to parents, improvements in traffic calming, safe routes to school etc. would result in a decrease in parental accompaniment. However, if parental reasoning is more multifaceted than Hillman et al.'s data acknow- ledges, a single policy measure focusing only on traffic is unlikely to affect parental behaviour. The current study aimed to discover more about parental preferences and how these influence children's travel behaviour. KW: SR2S