title: Children's route choice during active transportation to school: difference between shortest and actual route.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of environmental correlates that are associated with route choice during active transportation to school (ATS) by comparing characteristics of actual walking and cycling routes between home and school with the shortest possible route to school.
  
  
  METHODS
  Children (n = 184; 86 boys, 98 girls; age range: 8-12 years) from seven schools in suburban municipalities in the Netherlands participated in the study. Actual walking and cycling routes to school were measured with a GPS-device that children wore during an entire school week. Measurements were conducted in the period April-June 2014. Route characteristics for both actual and shortest routes between home and school were determined for a buffer of 25 m from the routes and divided into four categories: Land use (residential, commercial, recreational, traffic areas), Aesthetics (presence of greenery/natural water ways along route), Traffic (safety measures such as traffic lights, zebra crossings, speed bumps) and Type of street (pedestrian, cycling, residential streets, arterial roads). Comparison of characteristics of shortest and actual routes was performed with conditional logistic regression models.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Median distance of the actual walking routes was 390.1 m, whereas median distance of actual cycling routes was 673.9 m. Actual walking and cycling routes were not significantly longer than the shortest possible routes. Children mainly traveled through residential areas on their way to school (>80% of the route). Traffic lights were found to be positively associated with route choice during ATS. Zebra crossings were less often present along the actual routes (walking: OR = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.05-0.58; cycling: OR = 0.31, 95% CI = 0.14-0.67), and streets with a high occurrence of accidents were less often used during cycling to school (OR = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.43-0.76). Moreover, percentage of visible surface water along the actual route was higher compared to the shortest routes (walking: OR = 1.04, 95% CI = 1.01-1.07; cycling: OR = 1.03, 95% CI = 1.01-1.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study showed a novel approach to examine built environmental exposure during active transport to school. Most of the results of the study suggest that children avoid to walk or cycle along busy roads on their way to school.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public & Occupational Health and EMGO+ Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. dirk.dessing@tno.nl.|Amsterdam Collaboration on Health & Safety in Sports, IOC Research Center, AMC/VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. dirk.dessing@tno.nl.|TNO, Department of Life Style, Leiden, The Netherlands. dirk.dessing@tno.nl.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dessing
authors.affiliation: Research group Healthy Lifestyle in a Supporting Environment, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sanne I
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: de Vries
authors.affiliation: Royal HaskoningDHV, Amersfoort, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Geertje
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hegeman
authors.affiliation: Department of Public & Occupational Health and EMGO+ Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Amsterdam Collaboration on Health & Safety in Sports, IOC Research Center, AMC/VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Australian Centre for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention (ACRISP), Federation University Australia, Ballarat, Australia.|Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (ESSM), Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
authors.forename: Evert
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Verhagen
authors.affiliation: Department of Public & Occupational Health and EMGO+ Institute, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Amsterdam Collaboration on Health & Safety in Sports, IOC Research Center, AMC/VUmc, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine (ESSM), Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.|School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.|School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
authors.forename: Willem
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: van Mechelen
authors.affiliation: TNO, Department of Urban Environment and Safety, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Frank H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Pierik
mesh_terms: D001642:Bicycling; D002648:Child; D002947:Cities; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004779:Environment Design; D005260:Female; D006798:Housing; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012449:Safety; D012574:Schools; D014186:Transportation / Q000379:methods*; D016138:Walking
keywords: Active transportation; Built environment; Children; Cycling; Elementary school; GIS; Global Positioning System (GPS); Walking