Children's perceptions of their neighbourhoods during COVID-19 lockdown in Aotearoa New Zealand

Neighbourhood design can have substantial impacts on children's physical and psychological well-being. COVID-19 lockdowns produced striking and unprecedented changes in how neighbourhoods functioned for children. The aim of this research was to explore what worked well for children during Alert Levels 3 and 4 (lockdown) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), focusing in particular on the neighbourhood environment. Children (n = 192) aged between 5 and 13 years completed an online survey that collected information on neighbourhood walking and wheeling and what they liked about their neighbourhood during lockdown in NZ. Car-less neighbourhoods were important for supporting children's well-being. Community activities such as the NZ Bear Hunt were appreciated by children. Natural environments, being home, spending time with family, and simple activities were all liked by participants. Social connections were important but often required technology. Findings can help inform initiatives to support child well-being in the face of potential future lockdowns or new pandemics.

COVID-19 and cycling: a review of the literature on changes in cycling levels and government policies from 2019 to 2022

This paper reviews 100 peer-reviewed articles and 12 non-refereed papers on COVID-19 and cycling published from March 2020 to January 2023. Overall, the studies suggest more increases than decreases in cycling, with some cities reporting large increases. However, there has been much variation among countries, cities, and specific corridors within cities as well as variation by gender, age, ethnicity, income group, trip purpose, and time period of the pandemic. The largest increases in cycling in 2020 were for recreation, exercise, and stress relief on weekends and weekday afternoons. By comparison, cycling to work, university, schools, and shopping generally declined. Most studies reported expansions or improvements in bikeway networks, often specifically related to COVID or accelerated due to COVID, and with a particular emphasis on low-stress facilities such as protected bike lanes, slow streets, car-free streets, and traffic calmed neighbourhood streets. Most of the studies examining the social equity impacts of COVID-related cycling policies found them to be broadly equitable across income, ethnic, age, and gender dimensions. Many studies recommended further expansion of low-stress, safer facilities in order to attract a broader cross-section of the population to cycling. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Transport Reviews is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

‘Why would you swap your nice warm van, where you can eat your butties and listen to the radio?' Mainstreaming a niche of cycle logistics in the United Kingdom

Due to a high level of dependency on fossil fuels, transport is not only a priority for decarbonsation but also a particularly challenging sector to decarbonise. Significant low-carbon energy transitions in mobility will require changes in practices, technologies, infrastructure and policy. Cycle logistics is a growing economic sector. E-cargo bikes have the potential to replace some delivery and service journeys and to be used in combination with other transport modes to form a network of low-carbon deliveries. In comparison with conventional cargo bikes, e-cargo bikes are adapted with electric assist motors, thereby enabling the carriage of heavier loads over longer distances with lower physical strain on the rider. This study positions e-cargo bikes as an emerging technology within the Multilevel Perspective (MLP), a framework for understanding sustainable transitions that is structured around three levels: niche, regime and landscape. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a landscape-level shock that has prompted an interest in increasing active travel and local deliveries. E-cargo bikes are a niche technology, and, although they respond to landscape-level trends, such as decarbonisation and air pollution reduction, the development of cycle logistics faces challenges stemming from the dominant automobility regime. There are limitations with e-cargo bikes themselves, although the technology and practice of e-cargo bike use are developing rapidly;there are factors that relate to the ability of the regime to accommodate and support the niche;there are considerations relating to practices and perceptions;and, finally, there are policy choices that reflect a lack of proactivity in encouraging and enabling e-cargo bike use. The paper explores experiences and perceptions of actual and potential e-cargo bike use and configures the MLP and the relationship between niche, regime(s) and landscape in relation to mobility transitions. © 2023 The Authors

Travel Plans

Travel Plans are a mechanism for delivering a package of transport measures targeted at a specific site by an organization, such as an employer, school, shopping, or sports center, intended to deliver transport and wider goals to the organization and society as a whole. Introduced from the 1980s to 1990s in the United States, Netherlands, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan, when consistently applied, Travel Plans can usefully reduce car use. The best employer Travel Plans in the United Kingdom secured a reduction in car use of between 10% and 20% and in the United States mandatory Travel Plans have in several cases cut car use by 30%. Despite the potential promised by the concept, Travel Plans never really established themselves as a mainstream part of transport policy. They became marginalized within the traditional transport planning structures as they do not map onto the existing practices and skill sets of engineering-led transport planning approaches. By 2010, they had largely fallen into disuse. However, in recent years the growth of data generating and analytics companies led to travel becoming part of organization management. Although not labeled as "Travel Plans,” the purpose of travel planning is returning in a form that matches institutional structures. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Post-pandemic shared mobility and active travel in Alabama: A machine learning analysis of COVID-19 survey data.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented impacts on the way we get around, which has increased the need for physical and social distancing while traveling. Shared mobility, as an emerging travel mode that allows travelers to share vehicles or rides has been confronted with social distancing measures during the pandemic. On the contrary, the interest in active travel (e.g., walking and cycling) has been renewed in the context of pandemic-driven social distancing. Although extensive efforts have been made to show the changes in travel behavior during the pandemic, people's post-pandemic attitudes toward shared mobility and active travel are under-explored. This study examined Alabamians' post-pandemic travel preferences regarding shared mobility and active travel. An online survey was conducted among residents in the State of Alabama to collect Alabamians' perspectives on post-pandemic travel behavior changes, e.g., whether they will avoid ride-hailing services and walk or cycle more after the pandemic. Machine learning algorithms were used to model the survey data (N = 481) to identify the contributing factors of post-pandemic travel preferences. To reduce the bias of any single model, this study explored multiple machine learning methods, including Random Forest, Adaptive Boosting, Support Vector Machine, K-Nearest Neighbors, and Artificial Neural Network. Marginal effects of variables from multiple models were combined to show the quantified relationships between contributing factors and future travel intentions due to the pandemic. Modeling results showed that the interest in shared mobility would decrease among people whose one-way commuting time by driving is 30-45 min. The interest in shared mobility would increase for households with an annual income of $100,000 or more and people who reduced their commuting trips by over 50% during the pandemic. In terms of active travel, people who want to work from home more seemed to be interested in increasing active travel. This study provides an understanding of future travel preferences among Alabamians due to COVID-19. The information can be incorporated into local transportation plans that consider the impacts of the pandemic on future travel intentions.

Public Views on the Reallocation of Street Space Due to COVID-19

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Many towns and cities have reallocated street space in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was done to allow more social distancing for physical activity and to provide space for restaurants to offer outdoor dining. We used data collected via an online Qualtrics panel of New Jersey residents (n = 1,419) to evaluate how these street closures were viewed. Did people take advantage of the opportunity to dine outside? Was walking more attractive with more space? How did respondents feel about changes in traffic patterns due to the closures? Did people walk more frequently? Results suggested that there was substantial public support for these types of interventions that allowed for more walking and more lively town centers (about 40%–45% of respondents expressed support, and only 35% had negative views;a large share was neutral). Those with negative views believed that street closures increased congestion and that outdoor dining made it more difficult to walk. Takeaway for practice: In New Jersey, many towns are considering making COVID-inspired street changes permanent. There is broad support for this, though transportation agencies remain an impediment. We suggest that the current groundswell of support for street changes represents a rare opportunity to implement street design changes that support pedestrians and outdoor activities. © 2022 American Planning Association, Chicago, IL.

Studying the Interrelationship between Telecommuting during COVID-19, residential local accessibility, and active travel: a panel study in Montréal, Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a substantial increase in the number of people working from home (telecommuting), in turn leading to unprecedented changes in mobility patterns worldwide. Due to the changing context of the pandemic, there is still a significant gap in knowledge regarding the effects of working from home on workers' travel patterns. The main goal of this work is to unravel the interrelationship between telecommuting during the COVID-19 pandemic, the frequency of active travel for non-work utilitarian purposes, and local accessibility levels around workers' homes. This study uses a longitudinal approach by analyzing travel and telecommuting behavior data from a two-wave survey administered in Montreal in 2019, pre-pandemic, and 2021, during COVID-19 (n = 452). Through a set of weighted multi-level linear regressions, we study the effects of telecommuting on the frequency of active travel for non-work utilitarian purposes, mediated by local accessibility around the household. Results show that the effect of telecommuting on non-work active travel for utilitarian purposes is highly dependent on local accessibility levels around the person's household. For workers living in high local accessibility areas, an increase in telecommuting during the pandemic has induced an increase in active trips for non-work utilitarian purposes. On the other hand, for workers residing in low local accessibility neighborhoods, the effect is the opposite. This research provides insights into the effects of telecommuting on non-work active travel, an area that is currently of interest to policy-makers and practitioners working towards increasing the level of physical activity among individuals through travel.

Decline in older adults' daily mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of individual and built environment factors.

BACKGROUND: Extensive research has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted the daily mobility of older adults. However, very little attention has been paid to the role of individual and built environmental factors in decline in older adults' daily mobility during the pandemic. METHODS: Based on a cohort survey of 741 older adults in Hong Kong, we conducted a one-way ANOVA to explore the differences in determinants (individual or environmental factors) of older adults' daily mobility between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, multilevel linear regression was performed to examine how individual characteristics and built environment factors are associated with changes in older adults' daily mobility during the pandemic. RESULTS: Results show that the duration of active travel declined from 174.72 to 76.92 min per week, and that the public transport use frequency decreased from an average of 6.14 to 3.96 trips per week during the COVID-19 pandemic (before the rollout of vaccination programme). We also found residential density (p < 0.05) and the number of bus stop was negatively associated with the decline in their active travel (p < 0.01), while a higher destination mix was associated with more significant decrease in active travel (p < 0.01). A higher availability of recreational facilities in neighbourhoods was associated with a greater decrease in public transport use (p < 0.05). In addition, those who were older or having depressive symptoms, which are considered a vulnerable group, were negatively associated with decrease in their mobility (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Maintaining mobility and social interactions are crucial for older adults' health during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study found that individual and environmental factors differentially affected older adults' active travel and public transport use during the pandemic. Our findings contribute to understanding the COVID-19 impact on daily mobility in older adults and support more effective active travel promotion policies in the post-pandemic future.

Development and optimisation of a multi-component workplace intervention to increase cycling for the Cycle Nation Project.

The Cycle Nation Project (CNP) aimed to develop, test the feasibility of and optimize a multi-component individual-/social-level workplace-based intervention to increase cycling among office staff at a multinational bank (HSBC UK). To do this, we first explored barriers to cycling in a nationally-representative survey of UK adults, then undertook focus groups with bank employees to understand any context-specific barriers and ways in which these might be overcome. These activities led to identification of 10 individual-level, two social-level, and five organizational-level modifiable factors, which were mapped to candidate intervention components previously identified in a scoping review of cycling initiatives. Interviews with HSBC UK managers then explored the practicality of implementing the candidate intervention components in bank offices. The resultant pilot CNP intervention included 32 core components across six intervention functions (education, persuasion, incentivisation, training, environmental restructuring, enablement). Participants received a loan bike for 12-weeks (or their own bike serviced), and a 9-week cycle training course (condensed to 6 weeks for those already confident in basic cycling skills), including interactive information sharing activities, behavior change techniques (e.g., weekly goal setting), bike maintenance training, practical off-road cycling skill games and on-road group rides. Sessions were delivered by trained bank staff members who were experienced cyclists. The CNP pilot intervention was delivered across three sites with 68 participants. It was completed in two sites (the third site was stopped due to COVID-19) and was feasible and acceptable to both women and men and across different ethnicities. In addition, the CNP intervention was successful (at least in the short term) in increasing cycling by 3 rides/week on average, and improving perceptions of safety, vitality, confidence, and motivation to cycle. Following minor modifications, the long-term effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the CNP intervention should be tested in a full-scale randomized controlled trial.

DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVE TRAVEL INITIATIVES IN CITIES

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted travel patterns, use of space and modal choice. Cities took actions in a way they did not before, trying to accommodate economic and travel needs with the goal of reducing the spreading of the virus. Active travel (AT) played an important role in accommodating travel needs and in increasing the resilience and environmental friendliness of the urban transport system. As cities gradually return to their normal life, transport planners must decide which role to assign to AT in future urban plans. In particular, whether to confirm the temporary policies incentivising AT enacted to counteract the reduction in the use of public transport or to return to the previous road space allocation that dedicated considerable urban space to motorised vehicular traffic. After reviewing the empirical evidence on the AT evolution during the various pandemic phases and illustrating the main policies planned and implemented at city level in many countries, this chapter summarises the lessons learnt, derives some policy suggestions, and identifies future research needs. © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited.

Is cycling infrastructure in London safe and equitable? Evidence from the cycling infrastructure database

Introduction: We describe and analyse a new, open dataset of surveyed cycling infrastructure in London UK. We demonstrate its potential to contribute to research and evidence-based policy development through a spatial analysis of infrastructure provision in London, before evaluating administrative boroughs on their infrastructure mix and compliance with UK Cycle Infrastructure Design Standards. Methods: We processed and cleaned the 233,596 records in the London Cycling Infrastructure Database (CID) that contains nine infrastructure types. To support comparison between London boroughs, infrastructure provision was normalised to borough area, population size and level of commuter cycling. We generated variables capturing cyclist separation from motor vehicles and estimated cycle lane compliance for such segregation against design standards. Results: Each CID record contains the infrastructure survey date, spatial location, infrastructure -specific variables and accompanying photographs. Traffic calming assets are numerous and distributed throughout London. Cyclist signals, crossings, Advanced Stop Lanes and cycle lanes and tracks are less numerous and more commonly seen in inner rather than outer London. Normalisation by area and population did not change these spatial patterns. Six percent of on -road cycle lane length is physically segregated from vehicles. Estimated compliance with UK design standards was notably higher for inner London boroughs with 66% exceeding mean compliance compared to just 24% of outer London boroughs. Conclusions: In this first systematic description and analysis of the CID we have demonstrated its potential to quantitively and qualitatively compare infrastructure and a method to estimate compliance against design standards. We found that cycling infrastructure is not distributed equally across London and may not be of the quality that provides safe space for cycling. Such datasets are critical assets to evaluate infrastructure and guide health and transport policies.

Children's Access to Non-School Destinations by Active or Independent Travel: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Children's access to non-school destinations is important for their well-being, but this has been overlooked in transport planning. Research on children's access to non-school destinations is growing, and there is a need for a comprehensive overview, examining both quantitative and qualitative studies, of the existing evidence on places that children access by active or independent travel. OBJECTIVES: Identify and summarize quantitative and qualitative research on the topic of active or independent travel to non-school destinations for elementary aged children (6 to 13 years old). METHODS: Papers published in English between 1980 and July 2021 were sourced from: (i) Web of Science Core Collection; (ii) PubMed; and (iii) APA PsycInfo. Three relevant journals related to children and transport were hand searched: (i) Children's Geographies; (ii) Journal of Transport & Health; and (iii) Journal of Transport Geography. The search was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1980 and July 2021. Covidence, an online software platform for systematic reviews, was used to organize articles during the title and abstract screening stage. PRISMA-Scr is applied for reporting. RESULTS: 27 papers were retained from an initial 1293 identified peer-reviewed articles. The results reveal that children in different geographies travel unsupervised or by active modes to places that support different domains of their well-being such as a friend or relative's home, local parks or green spaces, recreational facilities, and different retail locations (e.g., restaurants). There is evidence that children's ability to reach certain places is constrained, likely due to safety concerns or environmental barriers. CONCLUSIONS: Research on children's diverse destinations is relatively limited as compared to trips to school. Various methodologies have been applied and can be combined to completement each other such as objective GPS tracking and subjective surveys on places children would go if they were available. Future research should clearly report and discuss the non-school destinations that children access to better inform transport planning and policy for all aspects of children's lives.

"It's a kind of freedom": adolescents and parents speak about motivations for active travel and COVID-19.

PURPOSE: Active travel (AT) incorporates physical activity into daily living, critical for healthy adolescent development. We explore adolescent and parent attitudes and behaviours related to motivations for adolescent AT and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured Zoom interviews with 25 adolescent-parent dyads in communities across Israel during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thematic content analysis was used to develop categories and themes. RESULTS: We identified key themes related to adolescent AT: Fostering independence enables adolescent AT; Pampering and safety concerns inhibit adolescent AT; Family and community norms influence adolescent travel modes; Personal enjoyment and positive attitudes facilitate AT; Peers and social networks promote adolescent AT and PA; Built environment and transport options influence AT choices. Interestingly, adolescents indicate AT is an opportunity for peer-to-peer communication without screen distraction, yet they use social media to promote AT and PA. CONCLUSIONS: The findings point to the influence of positive parent perceptions, active and supportive family and community norms on adolescent AT. Peer norms and social networks as well as features of the built environment also have the potential to influence AT. The COVID-19 pandemic encouraged use of AT and provided a setting for positive AT experiences.

The Perspective Projects Promoting Sustainable Mobility by Active Travel to School on the Example of the Southern Poland Region

The paper presents a discussion concerning the development of projects regarding active travel with the policy of sustainable mobility, with active school transport in southern Poland being taken into special consideration. The implementation of the idea of sustainable school travel planning involves linking several social groups, including traffic planners and organizers, school administrators, governments, parents, and children. This, in turn, requires considering the criteria reported by all parties when choosing a scenario for the region’s development in terms of transport solutions. The following study was based on the methodological foundations of multicriteria decision-making analysis. The research purpose of this paper is to identify and classify the actions, policies, and scenarios of active travel projects for the sustainable development of mobility based on the cities of southern Poland. The evaluation was carried out through expert methods with multicriteria decision-making tools based on the MULTIPOL (MULTI-criteria and POLicy) prospective analysis technique. It allowed for the selection of the most probable policy, which covered the six actions considered by the experts to be the most significant for the development of the active school transport system in the analyzed region. Such actions are as follows: identification of walking school bus routes, modernization of crosswalk lines, planning of walking and cycling routes to schools, promoting safety educational programs, distribution of active school transport booklets and cycling, and pedestrian skills training workshops. The paper presents a new method to evaluate the policies and actions regarding promoting sustainable (active) travel to school. The innovative approach results from assembling a mixed group of people (stakeholders) as experts. The mix of experts consisting of users (pupils and parents), practitioners, and scientist experts in this field allowed us to score policies, actions, and scenarios, enabling a wider spectrum of assessment than before.

Travel Behaviour and Barriers to Active Travel among Adults in Yaounde, Cameroon

The literature on urban travel behaviour in Africa is sparse, limiting our understanding of how urban transport policies respond to human and planetary needs. We conducted a cross-sectional household telephone survey on 1334 participants, using a 24 h time-use diary, to investigate travel behaviour and barriers to active travel (walking and cycling) in Yaounde, Cameroon. We found that two-thirds of all participants reported at least one trip;the median (IQR) numbers of trips per capita and per participant with trips were 2 (0-3) and 2 (2-3), respectively. The main trip modes were shared taxi (46%), walking (27%), private cars (11%), and motorcycle taxis (10%), with 25%, 56%, and 45% of all participants reporting the use of active, motorised, and public transport, respectively. The mean (IQR) trip duration was 48 (30-60) min;for participants who reported trips, the daily overall and active travel durations were 121 (60-150) and 28 (0-45) min, respectively. Women were less likely to travel, making fewer and shorter trips when they did. Participants in less wealthy households were more likely to travel. The primary barriers to both walking and cycling were the fear of road traffic injuries and the inconvenience of active travel modes. Therefore, local urban transport authorities need to improve the safety and convenience of active mobility and promote gender equity in transport. Restrictions to movements during the COVID-19 pandemic and the relatively small survey sample might have biased our results;thus, a representative travel survey could improve current estimates. More generally, high-quality research on travel behaviours and their correlates is needed in low-resource settings.

The TROLLEY Study: assessing travel, health, and equity impacts of a new light rail transit investment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life in extraordinary ways impacting health and daily mobility. Public transit provides a strategy to improve individual and population health through increased active travel and reduced vehicle dependency, while ensuring equitable access to jobs, healthcare, education, and mitigating climate change. However, health safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic eroded ridership, which could have longstanding negative consequences. Research is needed to understand how mobility and health change as the pandemic recedes and how transit investments impact health and equity outcomes. METHODS: The TROLLEY (TRansit Opportunities for HeaLth, Livability, Exercise and EquitY) study will prospectively investigate a diverse cohort of university employees after the opening of a new light rail transit (LRT) line and the easing of campus COVID-19 restrictions. Participants are current staff who live either < 1 mile, 1-2 miles, or > 2 miles from LRT, with equal distribution across economic and racial/ethnic strata. The primary aim is to assess change in physical activity, travel mode, and vehicle miles travelled using accelerometer and GPS devices. Equity outcomes include household transportation and health-related expenditures. Change in health outcomes, including depressive symptoms, stress, quality of life, body mass index and behavior change constructs related to transit use will be assessed via self-report. Pre-pandemic variables will be retrospectively collected. Participants will be measured at 3 times over 2 years of follow up. Longitudinal changes in outcomes will be assessed using multilevel mixed effects models. Analyses will evaluate whether proximity to LRT, sociodemographic, and environmental factors modify change in outcomes over time. DISCUSSION: The TROLLEY study will utilize rigorous methods to advance our understanding of health, well-being, and equity-oriented outcomes of new LRT infrastructure through the COVID-19 recovery period, in a sample of demographically diverse adult workers whose employment location is accessed by new transit. Results will inform land use, transportation and health investments, and workplace interventions. Findings have the potential to elevate LRT as a public health priority and provide insight on how to ensure public transit meets the needs of vulnerable users and is more resilient in the face of future health pandemics. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The TROLLEY study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT04940481 ) June 17, 2021, and OSF Registries ( https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/PGEHU ) June 24, 2021, prior to participant enrollment.

‘On a road to nowhere….’ analyzing motivations for undirected travel

This study is the first to empirically analyze motivations for taking undirected travel (UT) trips, or travel without a destination (as opposed to derived trips) undertaken for the purpose of the trip itself, as the determinants and characteristics are largely unknown. The overall research objective is to explore UT motivations in terms of demographics and trip characteristics, such as mode, frequency, distance, and duration, using survey data from Flanders, Belgium during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown (18 March – 4 May 2020). First, a factor analysis identifies four main motivations for UT: 1. Improving Health and Well-Being, 2. Removing Negative Feelings, 3. Enjoying Scenery, and 4. Out-of-Home Socializing. Following, differences in UT motivations across groups are analyzed with mean-comparisons of demographic characteristics, trip characteristics, and attitude and well-being measurements. Findings suggest a clear relationship between UT and physical/mental health. There are stronger motivations for active than motorized UT trips, and stronger motivations associated with use of multiple modes. Longer (distance and duration) and more frequent UT trips increasingly fulfill all motivations. This research provides more evidence for the idea that travel is not always a derived demand for which less is always better, or an ancillary event to other activities, and can offer baseline empirical information on UT from which future studies can grow as well as contribute information about the value of travel.

Road Safety Evaluation Framework for Accessing Park Green Space Using Active Travel

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a burgeoning demand for active travel (walking or cycling), which is a healthy, pollution-free, and affordable daily transportation mode. Park green space (PGS), as an open natural landscape, have become a popular destination for active travel trips in metropolitan areas. Pedestrians and cyclists are often at high crash risk when exposed to complicated traffic environments in urban areas. Therefore, this study aims to propose a safety assessment framework for evaluating active travel traffic safety (ATTS) near PGS from the perspective of urban planning and exploring the effect of the point-of-interest (POI) aggregation phenomenon on ATTS. First, links between ATTS and the environment variables were investigated and integrated into the framework using the catastrophe model. Second, the relationship between the POI density and ATTS was investigated using three spatial regression models. Results in the Wuhan Metropolitan Area as a case study have shown that (1) the population density, road density, nighttime brightness, and vegetation situation near PGS have pronounced effects on ATTS;(2) pedestrians near PGS enjoy safer road facilities than cyclists. Active travel traffic near PGS requires more attention than non-park neighborhoods;(3) among four park categories, using active travel to access theme parks is the safest;and (4) SEM has the best fit for POI cluster research. Increases in leisure facility density and residence density may lead to deterioration and improvement in ATTS safety levels near PGSs, respectively. The safety framework can be applied in other regions because the selected environment indicators are common and accessible. The findings offer appropriate traffic planning strategies to improve the safety of active travel users when accessing PGS. Copyright © 2022 Luo, Liu, Xing, Wang and Rao.

The Associations of Active Travel to School With Physical Activity and Screen Time Among Adolescents: Do Individual and Parental Characteristics Matter?

Little is known about the relationship of active travel to school (ATS) with physical activity (PA) and screen time (ST) by individual and parental characteristics among adolescents, especially in China. To address the research gap, this study aimed to explore the difference of sex, age, living environment, parental occupation and education level in the relationship of ATS with PA and ST among students of grades 7-12 (aged 10-18 years) using cross-sectional data. In 13 cities of Hubei province, China, students from 39 public schools were recruited to engage in the survey. In total, 5,898 students (response rate = 89.6%) were invited into this study. Participants were required to report their ATS (including its types), PA and ST as well as sociodemographic information using a validated questionnaire. Descriptive analyses were used to report the information of all variables. Regression models were used to analyse the relationships of ATS and its types with PA and ST. In a total of 4,128 participants (boys: 50.9%; younger adolescents: 61.9%) included in the final analysis, the proportion of those with ATS was 47.3%. Regarding the types of ATS, walking accounted for over 30%, while cycling was 13.2%. Participants with ATS were more likely to have sufficient PA (OR = 1.26, 95% CI: 1.14-1.39), especially among boys, younger adolescents and those with lower parental education level. However, ATS was not associated with ST (OR = 0.94, 95% CI: 0.86-1.01). Participants with cycling had a higher odds ratio of being physically active (OR for cycling = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.27-1.70; OR for walking = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.06-1.32). The association of ATS types with PA and ST differed by gender, age, living environment and parental educational level as well as occupations. ATS may be a useful approach to increase PA among adolescents, but this should be explained by individual and parental characteristics.