Adolescents’ travel patterns to various destinations and independent mobility across settlement types

Abstract

Active travel could contribute to increased physical activity among children and adolescents. Additionally, when the adolescents independently travel to various destinations, they usually present physically active profiles. However, the characteristics of the home neighbourhood are related to the active travel patterns and independent mobility of adolescents and may differ across settlement types. Therefore, this study compared adolescents’ mode of travel and who they travelled with, to various destinations (excluding school) as well as how far adolescents were allowed to travel on foot or by bicycle without adult supervision across various settlement types. Participants were 838 adolescents living in different settlement types (i.e. medium-to-large urban areas (n = 177), small urban areas (n = 506) and rural areas (n = 155)) in the Otago region of New Zealand. Adolescents self-reported their sociodemographic characteristics, mode of travel and independent mobility in a supervised online questionnaire. Differences between the three settlement types were compared using the Chi-squared test. The car was the most frequently used mode of travel by adolescents to friend’s home, relative’s home, shops/markets/restaurants and sport venues across all three settlement types. Cycling to all destinations was more common in small urban areas and rural areas, compared to medium-to-large urban areas (p < 0.05). The independent mobility was higher in small urban areas than other settlement types. Adolescents living in rural areas were allowed to travel independently further on foot or bicycle than their counterparts from urban areas (p < 0.05). Future interventions should encourage active travel and independent mobility taking into account specific characteristics of settlements where adolescents live.