2013 Session: 406

• Vouchers, Magnets, Charters, and Options: Analyzing Effects of School and Housing Choices on Mode Choice to School
  Abstract: Safe routes to school has been a research topic since the 1970s, and a goal of government programs since 1997. Despite improvements from these efforts, the share of students walking and biking continues to decline. Several barriers have been identified, including parents’ concerns about safety, the environment, and time, and external factors such as traffic, weather, and distance. This research suggests two important factors influencing distance have been overlooked by planners: education movements since the 1950s for greater school choice, and affordable housing policies. Beyond desegregation, the creation of magnets, vouchers, academies, charters, and other school options have resulted in growing shares of urban students traveling long distances to school. In Oakland, CA, only 49% of students attend their neighborhood school, and another 10,228 attend 34 charters with countywide enrollment. Simultaneously, US housing policies have also changed. Construction of public housing has ceased, save for replacement units. Housing voucher programs are oversubscribed and those with vouchers often change neighborhoods or cities to find a unit. Foreclosures, home prices, and rent shortages in cities have also limited housing choices. Combined, school and housing policies have eroded the theorized economic location choice in which families balance housing and transportation costs to be near good schools. The study employs surveys, time-use diaries, and interviews with 70 Oakland parents or caregivers. Results identify the complex housing, school and transportation choices that ultimately affect school travel, and offers potential ways for transport, land use, and education planners to coordinate on active travel to school.
  Authors: Makarewicz, Carrie
  Authors: Makarewicz, Carrie
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-0155
• Toward Safer Roadside Behavior on School Journey Through Interactive Video Training
  Abstract: Regular exercise is linked with increased health, general wellbeing and a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and osteoporosis in later life. Despite this, fewer children are walking to school and take sufficient exercise with a corresponding rise in childhood obesity. Promoting active modes for school travel, such as walking, has become commonplace in recent years. In the United Kingdom, Safe Routes to Schools programs demonstrate one method of promoting walking, whilst attempting to ensure the safety of children during their school journey through interventions which include child pedestrian training. The quality of child pedestrian training programs in the United Kingdom has suffered in recent years due to austerity measures and time pressures forcing local authorities to reduce the amount of practical training and increase the amount of less effective, but cheaper, paper-based classroom activities. This paper considers the effectiveness of an interactive video which has been developed as an alternative to these paper-based activities designed to target and improve the crossing behavior of children between parked cars. In an exploratory study targeted at elementary school aged children, significant improvements in certain crossing behaviors were demonstrated as a result of training with the interactive video, indicating its potential to significantly improve the range of resources currently available for use by road safety training professionals.
  Authors: Hammond, James; Cherrett, Tom; Waterson, Ben
  Authors: Hammond, James; Cherrett, Tom; Waterson, Ben
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-0279
• Case Study of Safe Routes to School Special Encouragement Events
  Abstract: This paper presents a case study evaluation of days designated for walking and bicycling as part of a Safe Routes to School program. The case study examines two elementary schools in Moscow, Idaho participating in two designated days for walking and bicycling to school, “International Walk to School Day” in the fall and “Fill the Racks!” in the spring. Students walking or bicycling to school were counted before and after the events. For comparison, counts were also observed at a nearby school not involved with the Safe Routes to School program. Count data was collected for eight days. Furthermore, 45 students and 34 parents were surveyed and 9 parents and community leaders were interviewed. The count data showed a significant increase in students using active travel modes on the day of the event and a few weeks later. The interviews and surveys, among other things, showed most parents felt the events increased their child’s motivation to walk to school and many parents said the spring event prompted their child to return to walking to school after the cold winter months. Policy implications and other lessons learned are provided.
  Authors: Buckley, Aaron; Lowry, Michael B.; Brown, Helen; Barton, Benjamin
  Authors: Buckley, Aaron; Lowry, Michael B.; Brown, Helen; Barton, Benjamin
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-1558
• Safety and School Travel: How Does the Environment Along the Route Relate to Safety and Mode Choice?
  Abstract: This study examines the relationship between safety, the built environment and mode of travel to/from school. The paper contributes to the literature by analyzing the actual route travelled and by examining objective traffic data within school neighborhoods. Parents and children completed a survey and mapping exercise to obtain to/from school travel routes, a methodological improvement over network shortest path analysis. Manual traffic counts were conducted around sampled schools (n=17). Logistic regression analysis confirmed a priori expectations regarding distance, gender and vehicles per licensed driver effects. New insights regarding safety were produced through inclusion of objective metrics designed to explore safety of the pedestrian environment. A higher number of vehicles, crossing streets, incomplete sidewalk networks and presence of parking facilities emerged as potentially important transport supply, design and safety related factors. If a child perceived her/his neighborhood to be a safe area to walk alone, they were also more likely to walk. For parents, perception of stranger presence, and busy streets influenced mode of travel. Different effects were produced across separately estimated home-to-school and from school-to-home models.
  Authors: Larsen, Kristian; Buliung, Ron; Faulkner, Guy
  Authors: Larsen, Kristian; Buliung, Ron; Faulkner, Guy
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-3241
• Multilevel Modeling of Local Authority Funding Options Relating to Bus Provision for Home-to-School Journeys in England
  Abstract: In the current economic climate, the British Government is revising all school travel funding and policies to highlight areas where savings and cuts can be made. The home-to-school transport provision policy has been in place since the Education Act 1944 and this policy costs local authorities in England over £1 billion a year. The aim of this paper is to examine the policies relating to the funding criteria of home-to-school public school transport provision. Specifically, the paper employs a multilevel modelling technique to develop a series of relationships between bus usage by school and the level of spending by local education authorities on home-to-school bus travel provision while controlling for other factors such as school quality, land-use patterns and various proxies for household incomes. The results suggest that there is a differential effect of funding on the total school-level bus mileage for primary (aged less than 11), secondary (aged 11 to 16) and Post 16 schools. It is found that school-level bus mileage in England would decrease by 16%, 27% and 10% for primary, secondary and Post 16 schools respectively if school budget for bus travel provision becomes zero. It is hoped that the results of the study will help inform practitioners and policy makers to select the policy responses that are most appropriate.
  Authors: Van Ristell, Jessica Ann; Quddus, Mohammed A.; Enoch, Marcus Paul; Wang, Chao; Hardy, Peter
  Authors: Van Ristell, Jessica Ann; Quddus, Mohammed A.; Enoch, Marcus Paul; Wang, Chao; Hardy, Peter
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-3614
• Capturing Speeding Behavior in School Zones Using GPS Technology
  Abstract: Speeding is a significant contributor to crash risk but is a particularly emotive issue in school zones. School zones have high levels of pedestrian activity and a relatively high proportion of children which makes it an especially important area for controlling speeding. However, most of the information we have about speeding comes from targeted police enforcement. There is little information on day-to-day speeding in school zones and even less information on how speeding behaviour in school zones varies across time. This paper examines speeding behaviour in school zones in Sydney, Australia using GPS, spatial, demographic and psychological data collected from 147 drivers over five weeks. The focus is on both the duration and magnitude of speeding and how differences relate to a number of driver, trip, vehicle and road characteristics. The main findings are that 23 percent of the distance travelled in school zones is above the speed limit, a rate higher than on urban arterials and residential streets. Furthermore, a small minority of drivers exceeded the speed limit for as much as half the distance travelled. These results demonstrate that despite efforts at reducing speeding in school zones and more generally, the practice remains very common. It appears that changing the road environment to force drivers to slow down may be more effective than information campaigns in changing drivers’ speeding behaviour.
  Authors: Ellison, Adrian B.; Greaves, Stephen; Daniels, Rhonda
  Authors: Ellison, Adrian B.; Greaves, Stephen; Daniels, Rhonda
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-5227
• Empirical Analysis of Students’ Usage of School Bus Seat Belts: Findings from Alabama Pilot Project
  Abstract: School bus seat belt usage has been of great interest to the school transportation community. Understanding factors that influence students’ decisions about wearing seat belts or not is important in determining the most cost-effective ways to improve belt usage rate, and thus the seat belt safety benefits. This manuscript summarizes two studies the researchers have performed to rigorously quantify the relative influences of a range of factors on students’ belt usage based on data from the Alabama School Bus Pilot Project. Both studies applied the discrete choice modeling framework that models a student’s choice probabilities of possible alternative belt usage status as functions of the student’s characteristics and trip attributes. The two studies analyzed two distinct but related choice problems. The first study considered two seat belt usage statuses: belted and not belted, and the second study further incorporated seat belt misuse. A new data collection protocol was developed to collect relevant information on individual student-trips for the purpose of the studies. The protocol enabled the researchers to investigate some of the factors that has long been of interest to the community but had not been thoroughly examined due to the lack of data, such as the age of a student. Twelve variables are investigated and nine of them are found to have significant impacts. They are age, gender, the home county of a student; trip length and seat location a student; time of day, presence and active involvement of bus aide, and two levels of bus driver involvement. The studies are the first to identify and analyze impact factors of school bus seat belt usage using rigorous statistical modeling techniques. The studies revealed several trends that had been overlooked or underestimated in the literature. The resulting quantitative models can be used to predict the change of seat belt usage rate caused by the change of impact factors. This is helpful in identifying the most cost-effective ways to improve compliance rate, which is critical to bring the added safety benefit of seat belts into effect.
  Authors: Lou, Yingyan; Mehta, Gaurav
  Authors: Lou, Yingyan; Mehta, Gaurav
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-3496
  Practice-Ready: Yes
• Toward Safer Roadside Behavior on School Journey Through Interactive Video Training
  Authors: Hammond, James
  Authors: Hammond, James
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-0279
• Multilevel Modeling of Local Authority Funding Options Relating to Bus Provision for Home-to-School Journeys in England
  Authors: Enoch, Marcus
  Authors: Enoch, Marcus
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-3614
• Capturing Speeding Behavior in School Zones Using GPS Technology
  Authors: Ellison, Adrian
  Authors: Ellison, Adrian
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-5227
• Vouchers, Magnets, Charters, and Options: Analyzing Effects of School and Housing Choices on Mode Choice to School
  Authors: Makarewicz, Carrie
  Authors: Makarewicz, Carrie
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-0155
• Empirical Analysis of Students' Usage of School Bus Seat Belts: Findings from Alabama Pilot Project
  Authors: Lou, Yingyan
  Authors: Lou, Yingyan
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Safety and Human Factors
  Session: 406
  Paper Number: 13-3496