EXAMENSARBETE INOM SAMHÄLLSBYGGNAD,

AVANCERAD NIVÅ, 30 HP STOCKHOLM, SVERIGE 2018

A Study of Effects of a Car Free

Week for School Children in

Nacka Municipality

HADIS PEPIC

KTH

SKOLAN FÖR ARKITEKTUR OCH SAMHÄLLSBYGGNAD

ii

www.kth.se

TRITA TRITA-ABE-MBT-18275

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Acknowledgements

Firstly, I am very thankful to my supervisor, Andrew Karvonen – thank you for

providing me with valuable input and critique during the writing process. I am

also very grateful for you always being available for meetings and other contact

methods.

I am thankful for my contact person and former colleague at Nacka municipality,

Marianne Areskog. Thank you for all the help with contact information and

valuable input during the entire process. You’ve made this a lot easier than it

could have been.

I am grateful towards all participants in the study: the online survey participants

who made the study possible to perform from a quantitative perspective, and; to

interviewees who gave me the opportunity to discuss with them.

Thanks to my parents, Sead and Edisa, for pushing me and helping me

throughout this process, but also during my entire education. Thank you my

sister, Elida, for always being there for me. None of this would have been

possible, or meaningful without you, my family.

Lastly, thank you Fatima. Together we have graduated – and like that we

continue through the adventure of life: together.

Hadis Pepic

Huddinge, June 2018

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Abstract

The increase of private car usage transport mode is a non-sustainable trend that

also has affected the choice of transport mode that takes children to school.

School children who use active travel as transport mode has decreased while

children who are driven to school has increased. Such travel behaviour has

negative outcomes on environment but also affects the physical activity of

children and their social characteristics.

This combination of a qualitative and quantitative study sought to explore what

effects an implementation of a car free week at different schools in Nacka

municipality had. The study aimed to understand the role of a Car free week at

schools in the role of sustainable planning for Nacka municipality. It aimed to

study how the car free week at the schools can contribute to children’s decreased

car usage as transport for children to get to schools in Nacka municipality, and

also to explore what factors have impact in the choice of transport mode.

The results have shown that Nacka municipality aims to increase pedestrians’ and

cyclists’ safety in traffic with the Car free week. Other outcomes such as positive

effects on the environment are important, but the main focus lies on improving

conditions for active travellers. Results have also shown that the Car free week

has impacts on the long term choice of transport mode as the share with car usage

has decreased. There are many impacts for young school children in their choice

of transport mode, but the main impacts for school children shown in this study

has been: parental influence; perceived picture of the urban environment of

parents, and; school administrations and teachers educative approach with

sustainability.

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Sammanfattning

Ökningen utav bilanvändandet är en ohållbar trend som också påverkar valet av

transportmedel när barn tar sig till skolan. Andelen skolbarn som går eller cyklar

har minskat medan skolbarn som blir skjutsade med bil har ökat. Denna typ av

resvanor har negative följder på miljö men även barnens fysiska och psykiska

hälsa.

Den här studien kombinerar kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder för att utforska

vilka effekter införandet utav en bilfri vecka på skolor i Nacka kommun. Studien

syftar att vilken roll den Bilfria veckan utgör i Nacka kommuns arbete med

hållbart resande. Studien syftar även till att undersöka hur resebeteendet hos

skolbarn påverkas utav den Bilfria veckan i Nacka kommun, samt att utforska

vilka faktorer som påverkar valet utav transportmedel.

Resultaten visar att Nacka kommuns vill öka tryggheten för gående och cyklister

med införandet utav Bilfria veckan. Andra följder såsom positiva effekter på

miljön ingår också, men huvudsyftet är att förbättra förutsättningarna och öka

tryggheten för gång- och cykeltrafikanter. Resultaten har även påvisat att Bilfria

veckan påverkar valet av transportmedel även i längden då skolskjutsen har

minskat. Det finns många faktorer som påverkar valet av transportmedel, men

några faktorer väger tyngre: föräldrars inflytande; hur föräldrar upplever

säkerheten i den byggda miljön, samt; skolledningarnas och lärarnas sätt att

utbilda skolbarnen inom hållbar transport.

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Table of content

1 Background 1

1.1 Scope & Limitations 3

1.2 Structure of the Report 4

2 Literature Review 5

2.1 The importance of sustainability 5

2.2 Rise of private owned vehicles 6

2.3 Introduction of-, and events including Active

Travel 6

2.4 Environmental outcomes of Active Travel 8

2.5 Development outcomes of Active travel 9

2.6 Economic aspects of active transport 9

2.7 Behavioural impacts in choice of transport

mode 10

2.8 Reasons behind parents choice of driving

children to school 10

2.9 Health and Well-being benefits of Active

School Travel 12

2.10 The Car Free week in Nacka municipality 13

3 Methods 15

3.1 Dialogue with responsible for the Car free

week 15

3.2 Online survey 15

3.2.1 Collecting data from the Car free week 17

3.2.2 Participating schools in the online survey 17

3.2.3 The Car free week online survey 18

3.2.4 Validity of the study 19

3.3 Face-to-Face interviews 22

3.3.1 FTF interviews with employees of

schools and Nacka municipality 23

3.4 Transcription 24

4 Results, Findings & Discussion 25

4.1 Purpose of the car free week 25

4.2 Travel behaviour 26

v

4.2.1 Travel behaviour before the Car free

week 26

4.2.2 Reasons for driving children 29

4.2.3 Travel behaviour during, and after the

Car free week 30

4.3 Traffic concern outside schools 33

4.4 Infrastructural influences 36

4.5 Participation in the Car free week 37

4.6 School children’s attitude towards the Car free

week and active travel 38

4.7 Parents’ attitude towards the Car free week 40

4.8 Environmental outcomes of the Car free week 41

4.9 General discussion 41

5 Conclusions 43

5.1 Suggestions associated with future Car free

week events 44

5.2 Suggested further research 44

6 References 45

7 Appendix A 50

8 Appendix B 54

9 Appendix C 55

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1 Background

A big part of working within the fields of urban planning and design today is the

awareness of the need for sustainable development and sustainable use of the

urban environment. Over the years, more and more efforts and importance have

been placed in questions regarding sustainable development from urban planners

and municipalities. One of the main issues addressed by government and

municipal planning regarding transport in general is the usage of private cars. The

theme of public transportation and sustainable modes of transport is something

that municipalities constantly are working with by identifying insufficiency and

flaws within this area and improving these types of systems into something more

sustainable. Furthermore, discussions about sustainable transportation are very

relevant and will continue to be relevant as long as the usage of single occupant

vehicles is preferred over use of alternative transport modes.

One way of working with these issues have been, and still is, by promoting

walking, cycling and public transport, which in turn is done by implementing car-

free zones, in most of the cases located in the city core. Topp and Pharoah (1994,

p. 231) defined the term car-free zone as “a city centre where motor traffic is

limited by an area-wide ban to that which is considered to be functionally

necessary”. It is a term that can be used by city governments to increase

attractiveness and economic liveliness of a city’s centre by reducing motor traffic

and the space it requires for parking and moving, and at the same time

encouraging people to use other modes of more sustainable transport such as

walking, cycling, buses, trains, lightrails etc (ibid., 1994). Even if there was a car-

free zone people would still need to travel to their work places, schools, grocery

stores etc., and will therefore have to find substitutes for travelling with car.

Having a car-free zone in the city centre also creates a safer zone for pedestrians

and cyclist since the risk of a traffic accident is reduced.

Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, is also working with promoting alternative

transport modes with car free zones. The fact is that Stockholm municipality

arranged a car-free day in the areas Stockholm City and Gamla stan in 2016. The

purpose of the event was to provide citizens of Stockholm the opportunity to form

a perception of what the city can look like with fewer cars and at the same time

experience the city in a nicer way (Stockholm.se, 2017).

In another part of Stockholm county, the local government of Nacka municipality

is also working with the issue of private car usage. Nacka is a neighbouring

municipality to Stockholm municipality with approximately 100.000 inhabitants

(Nacka.se, 2018b). The municipality is currently working with one of the biggest

implementations infrastructural wise ever in Nacka, as one of the metro lines of

Stockholm will be prolonged, to Nacka, with three new metro stations within the

municipal boundaries (ibid., 2018b). Alongside with this Nacka has already

started the work with building Nacka city (translated from Swedish: Nacka stad)

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which aims to create a new, dense mixed use area on the part of Nacka called

Sicklaön. The developing of Nacka city will include 14000 new dwellings and

10000 work places (Nacka.se, 2018a). However, the problem with private car

usage is also seen in Nacka as even though Stockholm as a county is decreasing

its private car usage over time, the trend has been opposite in Nacka municipality

with increasing amount of private cars users (nvp.se, 2013) . In Stockholm County

there are 198 cars/1000 inhabitants, compared to Nacka municipality which has

285 cars/1000 inhabitants (Scb.se, 2018).

Something that has gone towards the wrong direction and that also connected with

the issue of private car usage is the transport mode that takes children to school –

to take the private car instead of alternative transport modes to school have been

increasing worldwide. For instance, in 1969 in the United States, 41 percent of the

trips to school were made by either biking or cycling, which can be compared

with the year of 2001 when the percentage had decreased to 13. During the period

mentioned above, the share of children that drove or were driven to school had

risen from under 20 percent to 55 percent (Mcdonald and Aalborg, 2009).

The numbers have also increased for children being driven to school in Sweden as

for the year of 2012, 24 percent of children between ages of 6 and 16 were driven

to school during winter time, compared to year 2009 when the share was 21

percent (Trafikverket, cited in Westman, 2017). In spite of longer daylight hours

during spring and summer time in Sweden the negative pattern is seen as 18

percent were driven to school in 2012, compared to 15 percent in the year of 2009

(Trafikverket, 2009). Not only do these facts have negative impacts on the

environment, but also affect the physical activity of children and in turn slowly

rises obesity. Despite the fact that a majority of the parents do not drive their

children to school, dropping of and picking up children at schools is a concern in

many municipalities (Anund et al., 2013). Children that have and do not have the

right to get organized school ride are being taken to school by their parents which

leads to decreased traffic safety levels around schools (ibid., 2013).

The municipality of Nacka is working in different ways to decrease these

numbers, and the planning of the extension of the blue metro line as well as the

upcoming development of Nacka city can be seen as different measures in order

to decrease car usage. Excluding these measures, the municipality of Nacka also

works to reduce private car usage by having an event at elementary schools, the

Car free week (in Swedish: Bilfria veckan). This is an annual event that occurs

during the spring and has its purpose to encourage more children as well as

parents to use other transport modes instead of the car and therefore create a safer

traffic environment around and at the school areas as well as engaging children in

natural physical activity (Nacka.se, 2017a).

The aim of this project was to investigate in how, and if, a car-free week at

different elementary schools in Nacka can change travel behaviour for children in

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order to change current travel patterns and contribute to increased use of

sustainable modes of transport in Nacka. The aim is also to investigate what role

the Car free week has for planning in Nacka municipality. In order to achieve the

aims the researcher asks three research questions. The first question is:

Why is the Car free week implemented by Nacka municipality?

By answering this question one can get a deeper understanding of the reasons

behind implementing a Car free week and how the municipality uses the Car free

week as a tool for planning and to understand the importance of it. It also answers

what role it has for the municipality and their work with sustainable

transportation, except for those given on the municipality’s website. The second

question is:

How will the implementation of a car-free week at different schools in Nacka

municipality affect travel patterns for children?

This is important to know because it is a way to see if the measure actually

increases the usage of sustainable modes of transport and therefore generates

changes with children’s travel behaviour, not only during the actually car-free

period, but in the long run. This question is quantitative and will be answered by

comparing statistics regarding children’s choice in mode of transport to school

before the implementation of the car-free week, as well as during it and after.

To analyze this matter the researcher asks the third research question:

Why did, or did not, children’s travel habits change after implementing the car-

free week in Nacka?

Answers for this question will give more deepened information about the travel

behaviour for children and reasons behind them. The possibilities of

infrastructural flaws exist regarding traffic safety but also flaws when it comes to

public transport systems and their need of improvements. Furthermore this

question will also reveal certain convenience reasons, if such exist, behind the

travel behaviour of children. The question is answered with help of interview and

open questions being a part of an online survey made for parents of children in

Nacka to understand which factors have most influent in the decision making of

children’s travel mode to schools.

1.1 Scope & Limitations

The study was conducted between January 2018 and May 2018 and counts for 20

weeks of fulltime work. The study uses: online surveys to explore how travel

behaviour change for school children in Nacka municipality and; interviews with

Nacka municipality and employees at schools to collect qualitative data about

travel behaviour and the Car free week. The results are limited to be valid for

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school children in grades F-6 in Nacka municipality, and the results are not to be

generalized for other population groups.

1.2 Structure of the Report

The structure of the report includes five main sections: The first one is

background information and aim of the report with provided research questions.

The second section includes information relevant for this study, information about

earlier research on active travel, as well as related events to active travel. The

third section describes what methods have been used to collect data. The fourth

section is a combined section of results and discussion of the data collected.

Conclusions drawn for this study are presented in the last section, including

suggestions for Nacka municipality in their future work with the Car free week,

and future research suggestions.

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Figure 1: Venn-diagram of sustainable development (Kth.se, 2017).

2 Literature Review

The literature review aims to provide existing information about earlier, both

exact and similar, case studies and relevant issues in the same field. This part

presents relevant facts and history about car free events, occurring both in direct

association with schools as well as different car free events such as car free zones.

Other factors such as pollution, choice of transport mode and behavioural impacts

will also be addressed to the extent that it is relevant for this study.

2.1 The importance of sustainability

Sustainability is a term that is often used in today’s society, especially in areas of

urban planning and spatial development of the society. The term that is being used

when planning for a desired future society is ‘sustainable development’ which can

be defined in different ways. One of the most frequently used definitions is the

one found in a report named Our Common Future, which is also known as the

Brundtland Report, written by the World Commission on Environment and

Development:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present

without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

needs.

(Brundtland, 1987, p. 41).

Sustainable development is divided into three different dimensions: ecologic

sustainability which comprises everything that has to do with the ecosystems of

the Earth (Kth.se, 2015a); social sustainability that is mostly about well-being,

justice, power, rights and the needs of the individual person(Kth.se, 2016); and

economic sustainability which can have two different definitions either that

economical development that does not cause negative impacts on the other two

dimensions of sustainability where the other definition equates economic

sustainability with economic growth, no matter of the (possible) costs in other

dimensions of sustainability (Kth.se, 2015b). One way of describing sustainable

development is by looking valuing them of equal importance. To reach

sustainable development all dimensions need to be fulfilled. (Kth.se, 2017). It is

easiest described as a Venn-diagram, see Figure 1.

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Transportation and transport systems are an important part of a city – they enable

trade of goods and services, provide access to clinics, schools and jobs and

connect different communities. The key to fight poverty and ensure participation

in an ever-integrating world is having access to an efficient and reliable transport

system (Badiozamani, 2003). However, transportation has its impact in other

dimensions of sustainability as it affects the environment negatively, especially

single-occupied fossil fuel vehicles.

2.2 Rise of private owned vehicles

The rise of motorised vehicles has been active for many decades. In the 1950’s in

Sweden, the communication minister at the time, Sven Andersson, commented

that the development of car usage has gone fast, but it was seen as a development

that was about to destroy socioeconomic gaps – a positive thing. There were car

owners in various socioeconomic groups that increase of car usage was

contributing to a more equal society (Andersson, cited in Lindgren, 2010).

Since then, society has been adapting to car usage and the car has become a

crucial asset for individuals and households, especially for everyday journeys

(Lindgren, 2010). Motorized vehicles has great influence in economic growth and

the forming of our society we live in, as it has resulted in both densification and

urban sprawl (Wingårdh, 2014). For example, it has enabled different services to

be separated. Housing, work and retail service can be located apart from

eachother, which has led to increased distances as the city is growing (Waldo,

2003).

The rise of private owned vehicles has lead to more people moving away from

walking and cycling. School children in the ages between 6 and 16 in Sweden are

one group in the society that shows the trend of moving away from walking and

cycling. More and more children are being driven to school as Trafikverket (cited

in Westman, 2017) presented statistics of an increase of children being driven to

school between 2009 and 2012. One way to deal with this has been promoting

‘Active travel’.

2.3 Introduction of-, and events including Active Travel

Many different measures have been introduced and implemented all over the

world as an attempt to decrease car dependency and increase public transport

usage and ‘active travel’, which is identified mainly as walking or cycling for

transport (Panter, Jones and van Sluijs, 2008).

Walking or cycling for transport is not only a sustainable transport mode but it is

also one way to increase people’s level of physical activity. From the perspective

of human health, walking is very popular amongst methods that increase physical

activity and is by some even considered to be almost perfect exercise (ibid.,

2008). Cycling is also considered to be healthy and the benefits from the active

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travel outweigh the health risks of cycling which includes factors such as injuries

and traffic accidents (ibid., 2008).

It can be argued that promoting active travel is one way of working towards a

more sustainable society as a successful change from fossil fuel vehicles to active

travel would mean a decrease of unsustainable transport mode usage. There are

different ways of promoting active travel; one way is forcing people to choose

other type of transport modes with governmental force by implementing car free

zones and thereby forbid almost any type of private vehicle activity in certain

areas, or; to encourage citizens not to use private vehicles by hosting events that

increase active travel.

In Lübeck, Germany, a car-free city centre was introduced in the year of 1989.

The ban was at first limited to Saturdays during longer shopping hours (occurred

one Saturday every month) but was later on implemented on every weekend.

During the car-free period, the frequency of public transport in form of bus

services was increased and the parking spaces of companies outside the inner city

that were not being used during weekends were included into park-and-ride

facilities (Topp and Pharoah, 1999).

Badiozamani (2003) argues that one of the main breakthroughs within the term

‘car-free zone’ occurred on the day of 24th of February in 2000 in Bogota, the

capital of Colombia. The city made history by banning private cars completely on

a working day, making seven million people using only public transport or active

travel for their daily activities.

The examples Lübeck and Bogota are spatial strategies to promote active travel.

In Peterborough, Ontario, Canada the city is promoting a ‘Car Free Wednesday’

program in order to encourage more schoolchildren to be more active on their way

to school by walking, cycling or taking the bus (peterboroughmoves.com, n.d),

which is a temporal strategy of promoting active travel.

For the risen issue of increase with parents driving their children to school in the

United States there has been a policy response to address the issue in terms of a

‘Safe Routes to Schools’ (SRTS) program. It mainly aims towards decreasing the

amount of children being driven to school by encouraging cycling and walking as

alternative transport modes and had set up goals of the program to achieve it:

1. To enable and encourage children, including those with disabilities, to walk and

bicycle to school;

2. To make bicycling and walking to school a safer and more appealing

transportation alternative, thereby encouraging a healthy and active lifestyle from

an early age; and

3. To facilitate the planning, development and implementation of projects and

activities that will improve safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption and air

pollution in the vicinity of schools(SAFETEA-LU, cited in Mcdonald and

Aalborg, 2009, p. 332).

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Investments of approximately 600$ million were made to improve cycling and

walking and making them more safe and appealing alternatives for school

transportation (Mcdonald and Aalborg, 2009).

2.4 Environmental outcomes of Active Travel

It is obvious that one of the main positive outcomes of active travel is the usage of

a non-polluting transport mode. An increase of active travel means a decrease in

‘non-active’ travel which includes private vehicles which mostly are fossil fuel

driven.

A reduction of cars leads to reduction in need for parking places and road space

which provides opportunities to increase green space and green networks, which

in turn provides beneficial health effects on both environment but also people by

having less polluted air (Nieuwenhuijsen and Khreis, 2016).

Since the city of Lübeck implemented a car-free city centre the measure showed

tangible effects regarding change in transport usage: the amount of cars was

heavily reduced in the city centre and 12 percent out of those who used to take the

car to get to the city centre changed their transportation mode to public transport,

cycling and walking. Along with the increasing number of pedestrians and cyclists

within the city centre, the decrease in car traffic resulted in remarkable noise

reductions and reduced air pollution (Topp and Pharoah, 1999).

During the car-ban day back in 2000 Bogota, congestion was dramatically

reduced and the local government announced significantly lower air- and noise

pollution rates, together with the fact that public transport commutes were more

efficient due to the decreased road occupancy. In Colombia there is only a small

part of the population, 15 percent, that can afford a private vehicle, yet these

occupy most of the road space and are the main cause of congestion

(Badiozamani, 2003). However, during the car-ban, citizens were forced to find

other ways of doing following through daily activities, such as leaving the kids at

school, going to work, grocery shopping which led to them finding more efficient

and more cost effective transport mode than their private cars that also has more

positive impacts on the environment carbon dioxide emission-wise (ibid, 2003).

The Car Free Wednesday in Peterborough is a measure that aims to improve

children’s activity level, as currently only 14 percent of children between ages of

5-11 meet Canadian activity targets that includes 60 minutes of activity every day.

The program does not only reduce emissions and congestion but is promoting

healthier and safer environment and aims to give the opportunity for

schoolchildren to meet up on the way to school before the actual school day

begins (peterboroughmoves.com, n.d.).

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2.5 Development outcomes of Active travel

In terms of sustainable development active travel does not only have a positive

impact on the environmental aspect of sustainable development. Positive impact

on other parts of society like social interactions can be seen, for example: during

the car-free day in Bogota in 2000 the streets were cleared of private vehicles and

opened for equal use by all citizens and connecting different socio-economic

groups (Badiozamani, 2003).

Active travel events can also be used for discussion of transport and urban

planning policy and even provide a change within city and urban development. By

involving different stakeholders, both governmental and communities, a

discussion and public education is created. An example represented by

Badiozamani (2003) was when a car-free day took place in Fremantle, Australia.

In Fremantle, there was a wide range of stakeholders involved for the car-free

event, including bus operators, city officials, local environmental groups and other

local companies, local media and volunteers. This widespread of participators

including stakeholders provides the locals with a feeling of participation in

planning through dialogue with officials, who at the same time are provided with

feedback about flaws, inconsistencies and concerns about the path of future

development which eventually lays the foundation of continued sustainable

development (Pinkard, cited in Badiozamani, 2003).

The change that the people in Bogota went through during the car-ban day does

not only emphasize the possibility of a dramatically change in peoples travel habit

but also have a deeper impact on the quality of life of all citizens. The car-free day

in Bogota did not only promote active travel and public transport, it showed the

flaws with the existing space for pedestrians and cyclists since the spaces were

perceived as inadequate which is useful information for municipalities and

government planning for further development (Badiozamani, 2003). The car-ban

in Lübeck had enough positive outcomes from the car-free city centre measure

that it eventually formed the basis of the permanent ban that was planned later on

in Lübeck in 1994 (Topp and Pharoah, 1999).

2.6 Economic aspects of active transport

Different modes of transportation have various costs. Costs associated with

ownership and usage of private cars is much higher in comparison with the costs

of owning and using a bike (Toronto Centre for Active Transportation, 2012).

Furthermore, municipalities’ cost for maintenance of infrastructure for walking

and cycling are significantly lower than cost for maintaining the needed

infrastructure to support motorised vehicles. Motorised vehicles demand more

spaces and upkeep in comparison with walking- and cycling paths as they require

a less space and cause less wear damage on road surface. A decrease of car usage

and increase of active travelers is therefore beneficial for governments and

municipalities, or whoever is in charge of maintaining roads (ibid., 2012).

10

In a report written by Levin, Neergaard and Nilsson (2014) the authors

investigated, among other effects, the socioeconomic benefits of investments in a

developed cycle path plan in Skåne, a landscape in south of Sweden. An

estimation of the changed travel behaviour was made s a basis for the calculation

and it later showed that the implementation of the resulted in a net present value

that doubled the investment (ibid., 2014).

Moreover, health and productivity is a level of economic impact. Lost time due to

road congestion is seen as an economic loss. So are the costs related to inactivity

which affects public health (Toronto Centre for Active Transportation, 2012).

2.7 Behavioural impacts in choice of transport mode

Studies have shown that factors such as connectivity, urban form and the extent of

a developed pavement and cycle path are associated with active travel for

transport. However, children are less likely to be influenced by connectivity and

urban form – traffic safety concerns and parental influences are much stronger

(Panter, Jones and van Sluijs, 2008).

In a research, conducted by Sandqvist & Kriström (2001), they concluded that

children of car-owning parents that see the car as essential for good quality of life

will also follow their footstep, to almost the same extent, in the future.

Simultaneously, children of car-less parents, or parents that do not value the car

high enough to enhance their quality of life, were negative to the thought of

owning a car being an important factor for their quality of life (Sandqvist and

Kriström, 2001).

Parents are the main source for children with a lot of things in life, not excluding

viewpoints and value systems in their life. Parents attitude towards certain modes

of transport will also, in almost the same manner, be shown in the attitude for

children as well, both during childhood but also in the future (ibid., 2001) – if

parents show good attitude towards active travel, so will their children as well.

2.8 Reasons behind parents choice of driving children to school

As previously mentioned the share of children that use active travel, as transport

mode, to get to school has decreased in recent years. According to Anund et al

(2013) most parents that drive their children to school motivate this firstly with

the fact that it is most practical for the family.

The second main reason is because of traffic safety concerns. Children in ages

between 6 and 9 do not have fully developed hearing and sight and should rarely

stay alone in traffic because of the biological conditions. At the age of 10,

children do have the biological conditions that are needed to stay alone in traffic

but usually miss experience and maturity (Trafikverket, cited in Åström, 2001).

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Studies have shown that parents perceive children’s environment more dangerous

than the child does (Timperio et al., cited in Anund et al., 2013). The car provides

protection for the children and become a way for both avoiding other (unwanted)

people and to show care for the children (Anund et al., 2013). Parents do think

that children should learn to be independent, but they still show engagement by

driving their children to school avoiding what the parents believe to be dangerous

situations. They express that it is the protection of an innocent child that is the

reason and not that the child should be seen as incompetent to travel

independently (ibid., 2013).

Parents that tend to live far away from school and drive their children do this as so

the children do not get negatively affected of the distance, something that was not

the children’s choice from the beginning (Tillberg Mattson, cited in Anund et al.,

2013).

Since parents are expected to support their children’s development they consider

them to be a project. To be supportive to the project is by being an engaged parent

and spend time with them, and therefore to drive children to school can be seen as

a good investment as it shows both commitment towards children and saves time

but also spends it with them (Anund et al., 2013). Active togetherness is more

important for parents: except for participating in the children’s leisure time

activities, the parents’ emphasize how much the short moments in the car give

(Tillberg, 2001). However, children think that parents should be available and

present at home and value this higher than the short moments in the car (ibid.,

2001).

Furthermore, studies have shown that it is the perception of time constraints and

the desire of flexibility that controls people’s choice of using the car. The

perceived gain of time when using the car is stronger than economic or ecologic

arguments (ibid., 2013).

McDonald and Aalborg (2009) presented in their article “Why Parents Drive

Children to School: Implications: for Safe Routes to School Program” a study

performed in the San Francisco Bay Area by investigating the travel behaviour of

children between the ages of 10 and 14 by surveying their parents. The survey

included a question about distance between home and school, where the

respondents could choose between 5 different categories:

1) 0-0,49 miles

2) 0,5-0,99 miles

3) 1,0-1,49 miles

4) 1,5-1,99 miles

5) 2 or more miles

Furthermore their survey investigated in reasons for their children’s choice of

transport mode for the journey to school. These answers were divided into three

12

categories: convenience, which included answers such as school being too far

away from home, it is faster, on the way to work, no school bus; safety reasons

such as child too young to take care of themselves or the fear of interacting with

strangers without having adult supervision; and other reasons such as the ride to

school being a good opportunity to spend time with child/children (ibid., 2009).

The study of the SRTS program made by McDonald & Aalborg (2009) showed

that a lot could be done to increase rates of walking to school, if the program

focused even more on non-infrastructural programs that would for example

provide adult supervision during the trip from home to school. This type of

improvement could affect more than half of the parents living less than 2 miles

away from school. What goes along this conclusion is also that the classic school

bus (in USA) might not be enough considering travelling with other modes of

transport rather than the car. To organize ‘walk-to-school’ groups in the morning

where children alongside with adult supervision go together to school seemed to

be one way to change the parents’ willingness not to drive their children to school

(ibid., 2009).

2.9 Health and Well-being benefits of Active School Travel

Active travel is a simple way to avoid physical inactivity and the risks that comes

along with it. With active travel one can prevent obesity or cardiovascular

diseases as well as having positive effects on ones mental health (Panter, Jones

and van Sluijs, 2008). An increase in active travel to school would mean less

private cars around schools that contribute to air pollution which in turn affects

children´s health positively and does not adventure the traffic safety for already

active travellers. At the same time, children’s health is affected negatively if they

are driven to school as there are fewer occasions for physical activity (Hillman et

al., cited in Westman, 2017).

Studies have shown that children’s mental well being and their daily travels are

linked in a way that it affects their personal characteristics such as stress, social

skills and social inclusion, developing confidence and happiness. Westman (2017,

p.17) explains it as following:

When travel enables individuals to engage in society, to fulfill their needs

and wishes by moving from one place to another, but also allows them to

enjoy the freedom of cycling with friends, this will most likely impact on

wellbeing in one way or another.

Active travel is not only about the way one gets from one spot to another and how

it affects the physical health but includes, certainly for children, the freedom of

exploring the local urban, as well as social environment. If children are not

allowed to independently explore they are automatically exposed to less social

engagements with others which in turn will affect their socializing characteristics

negatively (Hillman, Adams and Whitelegg, 1990). Even public transport is seen

13

as an alternative way of travelling to private car as children value taking the

school bus alone higher. By doing this children gain confidence and greater sense

of independence which the private car and parents cannot do to the same extent.

Given the information above and how active travel can affect children both

physically and socially one can understand that the academic achievement and

performance in school is included. Research and studies have shown that physical

activity in children and their cognitive functions and academic performances are

related: when the level of physical activity behaviour is high, so is the increase in

cognitive functions and academic performances. Furthermore, sedentary

behaviour has shown the opposite effect in cognitive functions and academic

performances (Zhao et al., 2017).

Furthermore, children who use active travel as transport to school show less signs

of stress when dealing with cognitive tasks in school, which is the outcome of

positive feelings and stress reductions that active travel contributes with (Hillman

et al.; Lambaise, Barry, & Roemmich, cited in Westman, 2017)

2.10 The Car Free week in Nacka municipality

Nacka municipality is working towards an improvement in sustainable transport

and is promoting it in different ways. On their webpage they have a section called

‘Urban development and traffic’ which itself introduces 6 different sections, one

of them called ‘Cycling in Nacka’. This section itself shows how much effort the

municipality in Nacka is putting in active travel and it shows the different

perspectives that Nacka is working with within active travel. One of the

subsections is called ‘Cycling and walking to the school’ and is encouraging

parents to use other alternatives for leaving and picking up school children other

than private car. They are promoting to walk or cycle with children to school for it

is both sustainable transport mode and a good socializing opportunity and

contributes to the children’s development and experiences in traffic situations in

the society (Nacka.se, 2017a).

As a part of promoting active travel to school, Nacka municipality has introduced

the Car free week, a campaign that is active during one week in the spring where

the municipality cooperates directly with schools to promote active travel. The

traffic department of Nacka municipality is responsible for the Car free week and

the event is, and has been for 5 years, part of their work with promoting

sustainable transport. The Car free week is inviting children to try out active travel

or public transport when going to, as well as home from school. In most cases the

time travelled with active travel transport modes does not take longer time, which

is something that the municipality hopes to demonstrate during the Car free week.

The schools that do participate in the Car free week receive banners that they hang

up at the school areas saying “Car free week” and also during one day of the week

there will be a cycle repairer available at the school to serve and repair school

children’s bikes (ibid., 2017).

14

It is not the first time that Nacka municipality arranges the Car free week with

schools: the Car free week has been active during one week annually since 2013.

Positive outcomes were presented in a short reportage from the Car free week in

2015 where, according to Nacka.se, many parents claim that they have discovered

advantages of walking or cycling with their children to the school, such as getting

fresh air, being active and contributing to a better traffic environment (Nacka.se,

2017b).

In the same reportage from 2015, a principal from one of the schools that

participated in the Car free week described how they have employees whose job

includes educating children within areas such as health, environment and

sustainable development which makes the Car free week a natural part of the

schools work. The principal also commented that in spite of the school being

located in such a way that it creates good opportunities for children to use active

travel to school, and also good public transport with a bus stop right next to their

school, parents still leave the children with car. This behaviour tends to create

chaotic traffic situations around the school, especially in the mornings, when the

drop off areas get overcrowded and people start parking/stopping at unsuitable

areas such as crosswalks or private housing parking spaces. The reportage from

2015 also explained speeding nearby school areas as a major problem which

creates an unsafe environment for those who cycle or walk (ibid., 2017b).

15

3 Methods

In order to fulfil the aim of the research project it is very important to see the

actually change in children’s travel behaviour as empirical data, as well as to see

what caused these travel habit changes with the children. The study will therefore

be divided into two parts, one where the focus lies on analyzing actual change in

travel habits over time, and the other part focuses on finding reasons behind

eventual changes and these two parts will complete each other.

3.1 Dialogue with responsible for the Car free week

An important part of the study will also be the dialogue between the researcher

and stakeholders in terms of Nacka’s local government, Nacka municipality or in

this case, more precisely their representative as responsible for the Car free week,

which is Marianne Areskog. Areskog works at the traffic department of Nacka

municipality and is responsible for planning of sustainable travels in Nacka

municipality. The importance lies in deciding during which week the car-free

week will be active, and to have schools that want to participate not only in the

Car free week but also be a part of the study.

3.2 Online survey

One way to collect primary data (newly collected information) is by using online

surveys. The most important benefit of collecting primary data is the fact that the

information is up-to-date (Dahlström, 2011) and can be related to the present.

Including the facts about internet users in Sweden mentioned above it is clear that

almost everyone use devices with access to internet daily and therefore there are

big chances to reach them through it, which opens of for collecting data, first and

foremost quantitative data, from all types of groups of people in spite of the

distance or lack of actual real world interactions through internet. This is one of

the advantages of using online surveys as for example finding large and

concentrated groups of people and conducting face-to-face discussions or similar

is very difficult. Wright (2006) argues that online surveys are useful for

researchers when trying to reach groups of people with specific interests or beliefs

which can complicate the data collecting depending on the topic. For example, if

the topic is sensitive and is targeting people with eating disorders or physical

disabilities, such individuals might not be easy to reach face-to-face because such

sensitive information can be perceived as difficult to share in a social interaction

(ibid., 2006)

Another example is if certain groups of individuals with political views that are

unpopular were asked to share their opinion - they may feel uncomfortable

expressing themselves openly. With online surveys, the respondents can avoid

such uncomfortable situations and yet be reached through the internet in larger

numbers rather than using other face-to-face research methods (ibid., 2006).

Online surveys can be created so that the respondents are completely anonymous

16

and this can be an advantage in the level of integrity of survey data since the

comfort can increase with anonymity regarding providing answers that presents

the respondents in an unfavourable manner.

Another great advantage with online surveys has to do with time – internet based

surveys that are both created and answered online may save a lot of time for the

researcher (ibid., 2006). With the help of a simple link, the researcher can simply

send the survey to certain groups with a click rather than finding other ways to

invite potential responders through real life methods like for example magazines,

flyers and other physical methods.

Furthermore, the researcher is given the opportunity to save time and use it for

something else, by working on other tasks of the project/research while the survey

still is ongoing. After the survey is formed and an invitation to participate in the

survey has been sent through mail or posted at an online community the

researcher will collect data while being able to focus on something else (ibid.,

2006). The researcher can also keep track of the responses and even the collected

results can easily be transmitted into certain document such as excel files and

afterwards shared through email. Many online survey services also provide great

assistance with designing the survey by having generated samples being ready to

be used.

The cost of doing an online survey is significantly lower rather than making it in a

paper format. Cost factors such as paper, postage, printing and data entry are all

eliminated by moving to an electronic medium. In spite of the fact that some

online survey services and software cost it is still expected for an online survey to

be less expensive in comparison with the cost of traditional surveys based on

paper and pencil (ibid., 2006).

However, there are of course some negative aspects and disadvantages about

online surveys including the lack of qualitative input that one receives through

performing face-to-face interviews. Many of the responders to an online survey

might have questions or thoughts about certain parts of an online survey or even

express different feelings during a face-to-face interview that can and has the

possibility to be of greater importance for the researcher and the work of

analyzing results. An interviewer that is present can get some answers clarified or

even the responder which will lead to more reliable data. It is therefore not

suitable for an online survey to contain open-ended questions since the possibility

of exploring the answers do not exist (ibid., 2006)

The reliability of data received from online surveys is depending on different

factors. There is nothing that can assure the researcher that the invitations to an

online survey will be accepted, and even if they are there is a possibility that

respondents do not feel encouraged to provide accurate answers (DeFranzo,

2012). Furthermore, there is nothing that can assure the researcher that the online

17

survey has been forwarded to someone who is not connected to the study, for

example, parents of children attending other schools in Nacka.

3.2.1 Collecting data from the Car free week

In order to see how the car free week will affect the use of private cars and driving

children to school, one must compare empirical data before, during and after the

implementation of the car free week. This part obviously relies on the

respondents, in this case which schools will like to take part in the survey and then

in turn the children’s parents which will have to take part in the survey, and their

possible answers.

Since the project relies on the participation of children and their parents’

participation in surveys there will be strict ethical consideration taken into

concern. The participants will be informed about the purpose of the project and

that their different demands will not be taken for granted. Since answers from

surveys will be of great importance in the research project it is important to follow

through surveys with parents and interview with employees of schools on their

terms, regarding location, anonymity and trust that the data/information obtained

from these activities are used in a trustworthy way to help the research.

To see what caused, or did not cause, change with school children’s travel habits a

method inspired by McDonald & Aalborg (2009) will be used. They analyzed if,

how and why new travel habits emerged with school children after implementing

the ‘Safe Routes to School’ program by performing surveys with parents of school

children (ibid, 2009).

3.2.2 Participating schools in the online survey

Any school is welcome to participate in the Car free week in Nacka municipality

and the event is voluntary for the children – no school nor child is forced to be a

part of it but the municipality of Nacka does encourage schools to do so, by

offering them the “Car free week”-poster, and . This year, 2018, 9 schools have

signed up for participating in the Car free week where 7 of the schools will have

the Car free week during week 17 and the rest during week 19. Because of the

time limitations for the research project, only the schools having the Car free

week during week 17, 7 schools in total, will be targeted for this research project.

The information about participating school was received from Marianne Areskog,

the main contact for the researcher that represents Nacka municipality. Areskog is

a former colleague for the researcher and the contact has remained since, which in

turn made the contacting with Nacka municipality unproblematic. Areskog is

responsible for projects of sustainable transport and has been working with the

Car free week for 3 years.

The information about which schools that are going to participate in the Car free

week 2018 was received from Areskog as she is the main person responsible for

18

the event. Areskog provided the researcher with contact information to all schools

that will participate, including phone and e-mail contact information.

The schools that have confirmed their participation (for week 17) were contacted

via e-mail. They received information about the study and a preview of the online

survey that was supposed to be answered later on. Out of 7 schools that were

contacted, 5 responded through e-mail and 2 did not respond at all.

4 of the representatives for the schools kindly denied their participation for

different reasons. However, Vilans school (in Swedish: Vilans skola) were

interested in taking part of the study. Vilans School is a school for children

attending year F-6. It is located at Danvikshem, an area just north of Nacka centre

and currently has 230 school children attending (jamfor.nacka.se, n.d.). The

representative from the school, Stina Scholz, agreed to forward the online survey

to class superintendents with the information provided to her by the researcher,

including the online survey. The class superintendents would in turn forward the

online survey to parents and guardians when it was time for the survey to be

answered.

3.2.3 The Car free week online survey

The online survey for this study was created at a Swedish online survey tool

webpage called ‘Webbenkäter.com’. The webpage provides different online

survey services that vary in cost; however they provide free service for students

from different universities in Sweden.

The online survey for the Car free week consisted of 13 main questions excluding

a couple of follow-up questions for some of them. The questions were in turn

divided into three different main parts since these parts collect different type of

data about school children of Vilans School: travel behaviour before the Car free

week; travel behaviour during the Car free week, and; travel behaviour after the

Car free week had ended. Most of the questions in the online survey were

mandatory, however some of them were no and could be skipped. If the

mandatory questions were not answered, the respondent could not move to the

next question. The questions can be found in Appendix A, and the mandatory

ones are marked with ‘*’.

Apart from standard survey questions with provided answers to choose between,

there are some questions in the survey with no provided answers. These questions

were answered by writing a shorter comment regarding active travel and the Car

free week. The questions were asked in order to form greater understanding of the

underlying reasons for current travel behaviour, however they were not mandatory

to be answered.

At the end of the survey, the responders had the possibility to participate in a

raffle, where the price was movie tickets – this was done by providing their e-mail

addresses. This is one measure that was taken by the researcher hoping it would

19

provide encouragement to participate in the survey and therefore more responders.

Conditional incentives tend to boost participation since it is seen as a reward for

the responders’ effort and time spent to follow through the online survey (Young

et al., 2015).

By dividing the questions into three different parts the result of a possible change

with travel behaviour for school children that occurs during the Car free week is

easily seen and the effects of the event will be clearer, which will facilitate the

analyzing of the results later. The entire online survey is attached as Appendix 1

in the report.

The researcher reached out to the schools, participating in the Car free week in

week 17, on Monday 16th of April, via e-mail. The message contained a

presentation of the researcher, introduction of the study, a preview of the online

web survey and a request to send the online survey to parents/guardians of the

school children. After school(s) agreed on sending it to parents, regular contacting

occurred until the day of sending the online survey to the parents/guardians. The

school representative then received the original online survey on Friday

lunch/afternoon, 4th of May, which was forwarded to the class superintendents and

eventually forwarded to the parents and guardians of the school children the same

afternoon. Following through with the online survey was possible between 4th of

May until 12th of May. During 8th of May, a reminder to follow through the survey

was sent out by the class superintendents as a measure to increase the number of

participants. Until the reminder was sent there were 34 responders – when the

online survey was closed the number of respondents were 37.

Since the online survey is targeting parents and guardians of school children in

Nacka municipality, the language used has been Swedish. However, for the

purpose of the report for this study the appendix including the online survey will

be translated to English.

Validity of the Car free week online survey is of importance for it to represent the

entire school, in this case Vilans School. Low response rates can usually be a

problem as the response rates for online surveys are most of the time far below 30

percent (Wiersma, n.d.).

3.2.4 Validity of the study

The amount of responders for the Car free week online survey was counted to 37.

Regarding the validity of the online survey there are different aspects that needs to

be discussed. One aspect that needs to be taken into consideration is that the

amount of responders corresponds to a low share in comparison to how many

school children there are attending Vilans School – 37 responses counts for

approximately 16 percent of the 230 school children.

However, one of the questions in the online survey considered the fact that the

participant might have more than one child attending Vilans School. The question

20

was “How many children of yours are currently in grades F-6?” which is of

importance to know because the web survey could only be carried out once (using

the same device). The answers of parents/guardians who have more than one child

attending the school represent more than one school child, which automatically

means that the 37 responders do not equal the travel behaviour of 37 school

children, but possibly more. The result for the question shows that so was the case

as more than half of the responders answered that they have at least 2 children

attending grades F-6, see Figure 2.

Figure 2: A diagram showing the answers to the question "How many children of yours are currently

in grades F-6?"

In Figure 2 one can see that 21 responders answered that they have 2 children in

grades F-6, and also that 2 responders have 3 children or more in grades F-6.

Simple calculations show that these 23 responses stand for 48 school children,

which is a big increase in terms of the share of school children that these answer

represents. Adding up all the children that the responses count for gives a total

amount of 63 school children.

In comparison with 37 responses, the 63 school children stand for a bigger share

of the school children population – 63 the equivalent for 27.4 percent of all school

children at Vilans School. As mentioned previously, according to Wiersma (n.d.)

online surveys are most of the time far below 30 percent with response rates – the

Car free week online survey was demonstrably no exception. However, when

considering the share of school children that the responders stand for, it is not too

far away from the 30 percent mark.

In spite of the fact that more than half of the answers count for more than one

child the researcher has chosen not to change the provided tables and diagrams

from Webbenkäter.com’s online survey service that only count with the

percentage of respondents to the online survey. This will not affect data with

information about how the travel behaviour has changed as the Car free week

event active and finished, nor will it affect the underlying reasons behind possible

changes. It is only used as discussion material for the response rate.

21

One factor that probably has had an impact regarding the amount of respondents

for the online survey is the delivering of the online survey. In order to respect the

parents and guardians regarding ethical considerations and their anonymity the

parents have remained complete strangers to the researcher. The delivering of the

online survey occurred in form of a link that was sent to the contact representative

for Vilans School, who sent it to the class superintendents and they have in turn

sent the link to the registered e-mails of parents and guardians. This way, there is

no possibility for the researcher to collect any information of the respondents.

However, this still brings up uncertainties such as the unawareness of how many

receivers of the online survey there are, and also other questions such as: Did all

teachers send the invitations? Did they do it on time? Did all registered parents

and guardians receive the online survey? However, assuming that all 230

registered parents and guardians received the online survey the researcher

immediately reduces the risk of misleading statistics that can show more positive

outcomes that it actually is.

Another factor that might have had an impact the validity of the online survey is

the period that the online survey was active and available for the parents and

guardians. The online survey was available from Friday afternoon, 4th of May,

until Saturday, 12th of May. This period of time included a weekend, and also a

holiday in the middle of week in form of Ascension Day on Thursday 10th of

May, which includes a day off for most of the population in Sweden. The 11th of

May then became a bridge day which is when a day is in the gap between a

Thursday or Tuesday occurring holiday and the weekend. During these days it is

common in Sweden to take the day off, and therefore have a long weekend. With

other words, only 4 days out of the total 9 were working days when the online

survey was available. There is a risk that the online survey is easily forgotten

during the work-free days as it might be considered as a part of a working day act

which includes checking the e-mail inbox, and this in turn can have affected the

amount of responders.

Because of the time limitations set by the researcher for this project the online

survey had to be carried out shortly after the Car free week event was finished.

For the study to be able to discuss and analyze long term changes in travel

behaviour it would have been practical to either perform the online survey later, or

even carry out another survey to see if the travel behaviour has remained as it was

shortly after the Car free week. Another way to do it could also be to conduct an

online survey that collects primary data about travel behaviour before and during

the Car free week, and one that collects primary data about travel behaviour after

the Car free week. However, because of the limitations of the study but also the

date set for the Car free week, this was not possible for this study.

A crucial factor that has had big impacts on the study is the number of schools

that participated in the car free week online survey, and therefore also interviews.

The number of schools participating in the Car free week for this year has been

22

less than previously, and this number was even more reduced as the study focused

on the schools that participated in the Car free week during week 17, but 2 of the

9 schools are having the Car free week during week 19 and are therefore not

relevant for this project. Vilans School was in turn the only school that showed

interest out of the 7 schools participating in the event during week 17. The aim

was to have more than one school participating in the online survey so that there

could be comparisons and conclusions drawn that could have considered not only

the specific schools but also generally for schools in Nacka municipality.

However, considering that only one school in the municipality is studied it would

be foolish to try and generalize more schools in different areas of Nacka

municipality with the results from only one elementary school. How travel

behaviour is changed at other schools in different areas and neighbourhoods of

Nacka municipality therefore remains unknown. Because of this, the research

project became more of a case study for Vilans School rather than generally

schools in Nacka municipality, which, originally, was not the purpose of the

study.

3.3 Face-to-Face interviews

Face-to-face (FTF) interviewing, also known as in-person interviewing, is a

method that is used for collecting qualitative data. FTF interviews can be a

conversation between two or more persons where one, the researcher/interviewer

is asking questions to the other participant/participants in order to collect

information. This method is represented by having synchronous communication in

time and place, which in itself is an advantage as the interviewer is able to observe

social cues such as voice, intonation, body language and other expressions which

is qualitative data that counts as added information to the verbal answer for

certain questions (Opdenakker, 2006).

Even though there are different ways of conducting FTF interviews, such as

unstructured-, semi structured- or structured interviews, the main advantage with

them all is that both the interviewer and interviewee can, without any time delay

between answers and questions, react to what the other person says in the

conversation (ibid., 2006).

Segal et al. (2006) presents three advantages of conducting such interviews:

increased reliability; increased validity and; utility as training tools. The first two

are connected to these interviews as the target is to collect qualitative data and to

receive it directly from the person without being concerned that the information

might be deceptive (ibid., 2006), as the risks can be for online surveys.

One great advantage with FTF interviewing is that the conversation can be both

audio and video recorded, if the interviewee gives the permission of doing so. By

recording, the interviewer does not have to rely on the notes written during the

interview but can actually look back by listening to the interview and collecting

23

more accurate answers rather than writing notes. In this project, interviews were

audio recorded, with permission of the interviewees.

However, one should not neglect the importance of writing notes even if the

conversation is being recorded as notes can be very useful:

1) to check if all the questions have been answered,

2) in case of malfunctioning of the tape recorder, and

3) in case of “malfunctioning of the interviewer” (Opdenakker, p. 4, 2006).

Malfunctioning of the interviewer refers to the interviewer failing with the

equipment such as fails to start recording, accidentally stops/pauses the recording

during the interview, accidentally erases the record etc.

3.3.1 FTF interviews with employees of schools and Nacka municipality

McDonald & Aalborg (2009) did not only use surveys to analyze how and why

new travel habits emerged after implementing the Safe Routes to School program,

but also used interviews with some of the parents in order to achieve greater

understanding for the choice of using different transport modes, however because

of the limited amount of time a similar but different approach will be used: In

order to gather data from individuals who are implementing the car free week,

interviews will be conducted with employees of the schools: Stina Scholz, teacher

in physical education, Vilans school; Camilla Jacobsson, class superintendent of a

year 4 class, and;Marianne Areskog, project manager of sustainable transport,

Nacka municipality. The interview with Areskog will be helpful for evaluating the

Car free and to understand motives and aims behind it from a municipal

perspective. Areskog has worked at Nacka municipality for more than three years

and has among other been working with further development of the Car free

week. During the Car free week the employees of the schools will be present at

school areas and be able to receive and observe changes at the school zones as

well as with school children and their activity levels in school. Interviewing is a

qualitative method that allows the researcher to evaluate selected issues, cases or

events in depth and detail (Quinn Patton, 1987). It is also of great importance to

conduct interviews on the interviewees’ demands regarding ethical considerations

and to treat the data obtained in a trustworthy way to help the research.

All interviews were conducted on Monday, 14th of May. The interview with

Marianne Areskog was conducted at Nacka town hall (in Swedish: Nacka

Stadshus) at 9:30. The duration of the interview was 46 minutes. The interview

with Stina Scholz was conducted at Vilans School at 14:00 and the duration was

28 minutes. The interview with Camilla Jacobsson was conducted at Vilans

School, immediately after the interview with Stina Scholz and the duration was 19

minutes.

The FTF interviews the researcher will be conducted in a semi-structured method

where there will be questions prepared. However, in semi-structured interviews

24

the interviewer can easily follow-up on certain responses and modify the prepared

questions in order to collect more accurate data (Segal et al., 2006), which means

that even if the researcher has prepared questions, discussion about certain

manners will occur which brings up spontaneous questions in order to collect

more qualitative data.

One of the demands for the purpose of this study is that the interviews will be

conducted after the online survey expires. This is mainly done to be able to collect

qualitative data and engage discussions about the data received from the online

survey from another perspective but also to discuss possible requests or comments

that occur from the qualitative parts of the online survey with both employees of

the school but also the contact from Nacka municipality.

3.4 Transcription

One of the most common forms of presenting qualitative data is by using it in

textual format (Flick, n.d.). This can be done by transcribing audio or video

recordings of the interviews but also write notes during the meeting. When an

interview is transcribed into text the qualitative data can be analyzed.

The interviews conducted with school employees, and the representative from

Nacka municipality, were audio-recorded and thereafter transcribed. Since the

interview conversations were performed in Swedish they were transcribed to

Swedish. However, they were later on translated to English by the researcher in

order to adapt it to the rest of the research as it is one of the main sources of

primary data for the study. This also means that quotes that have been used for the

analysis are originally quotes in Swedish, translated to English, van Nes et al.,

(2010) argues that there are several challenges when translating texts representing

qualitative data gathered from non-English speaking languages to English. For

example participants might use existing culturally bound words that have a certain

meaning that is difficult to translate (ibid., 2010). For this study the quotes will

therefore be used and translated in such way that it fits with the English language

without jeopardizing the actual information provided from the Swedish quotes.

25

4 Results, Findings & Discussion

This section is provided with a combination of: the results and findings from the

Car free week online survey and conducted interviews related to the Car free

week and; discussion of the results and findings.

To make a complete analysis of the Car free week the researcher and fulfil the aim

of this study, the researcher aims to answer three research questions, presented in

the ‘Background’. The ‘Results, Findings & Discussion’ will therefore be divided

into different parts, where each parts aim to present data and discussion that can

provide answers for each question.

For the sake of the structure of the report and to provide answers for the research

questions, the analysis will be followed out so it fits the order of the research

questions. Therefore, the first part of this section aims to present relevant facts,

collected data and discussion to answer the research question: Why is the Car free

week in Nacka municipality implemented Continuously the section will present

relevant facts, collected data and discussion to answer the research question: How

will the implementation of a car-free week at different schools in Nacka

municipality affect travel patterns for children? Thereafter the focus will lie on

presenting relevant facts, collected data and discussion to answer the research

question: Why did, or did not, children’s travel habits change after implementing

the car-free week in Nacka municipality? Lastly, general discussions about

relevant topics and information regarding the study will be provided.

Furthermore, most of the content discussed and questions asked in the online

survey and during interviews is presented and discussed, but exact order and setup

of the questions can be found in Appendix 1 (online survey), Appendix 2 and

Appendix 3 (interviews).

4.1 Purpose of the car free week

The Car free week in Nacka municipality is one of the different ways that the

municipality works with promoting sustainable transport. The importance of the

Car free week was explained at Nacka.se (2017b) as this targets school child and

to encourage them to cycle and walk to school. Potential outcomes of this are

many, especially if the promotion is successful as Sandqvist and Kriström (2001)

argued that if children are dependent of car for a good quality of life, this will

most probably be the case for them as adults as well. Basically this means that

children are forming a future version of themselves during their childhood, and a

developed habit in younger days will most likely follow them throughout their

lives.

Another perspective that is taken into consideration, and for which the Car free

week should work as positive input, is the environment around schools with

traffic safety. During the interview with Areskog (2018) it became very clear that

Nacka municipality is indeed doing this for many different purposes where are all

26

of them are important. Even if the Car free week is about promoting sustainable

travel, the main concern for the municipality lies in providing safe environment

for active travellers:

All purposes behind the Car free week are important, but it is the part with

traffic safety that is the main purpose of the Car free week. People who walk

and should feel safe and not be disturbed by stressed car drivers around the

schools in the morning that tend to violate traffic rules by driving on the

pavement because of the abundance of cars. (Areskog, 2018)

Areskog (2018) explained that traffic safety is just one part of it and for the

purposes of the Car free week also includes sustainable transport and climate

thinking. She also points out other positive outcomes including easier

concentration in school:

Side effects such as children’s health, concentration in school and

developing healthy habits for the future but also maturation in traffic for

school children and their mobility freedom is not to be forgotten as positive

outcomes of active travel. This type of information is important to deliver

alongside this project with cycling and walking, to encourage school

children and parents.

Hillman et al., cited in Westman (2017) also lifted the fact that an increase of

active travel to school increases the safety around the school regarding the traffic

safety, and that children who are not driven to school have lesser opportunities for

exercise and that this is affecting their health negatively.

4.2 Travel behaviour

To actually see if there have been any outcomes of the Car free week in terms of

change in travel behaviour an online survey was performed. The online survey

invited the parents of school children to answer question about their children’s

travel behaviour.

4.2.1 Travel behaviour before the Car free week

During spring/summer time only 8.1 percent use car as a transport mode to get to

school. Active travel stands for 86.5 percent (67.6 percent walking and 18.9

percent cycling), see Figure 3. However, the shares of different transport modes

are different for school children getting home; 13.5 percent get home with car;

active travel stands for 83.8 percent and; bus/PT had also decreased in from 5.4 %

in the morning to 2.7 % in the afternoon, see Figure 4.

27

Figure 3: Distribution of answers to the question "How does/do the child/children usually get to school

during spring/summer time (April-October)?"

Figure 4: Distribution of answers to the question "How does/do the child/children usually home from

school during spring/summer time (April-October)?"

During autumn/winter time the transport mode used does not change depending

on whether the child/children are going to school or home from school. The

school children that get driven to school in the morning are also picked up after

school and they correspond to 16.2 percent. 2.7 percent are going to and home

from school with bus/PT which means that the rest, 81.1 percent are using active

travel as a transport mode, see Figure 5 and Figure 6.

28

Figure 5: Distribution of answers to the question "How does/do the child/children usually get to school

during autumn/winter time (November-March)?"

Figure 6: Distribution of answers to the question "How does/do the child/children usually get home

from school during autumn/winter time (November-March)?”

The difference in percentage of school children being driven to and home from

school between spring/summer time and autumn/winter time is distinct. Westman

(2017) claimed that in 2012 the amount of school children being driven was

increased from 18 percent during summer to 24 percent during winter time, for the

entire nation. The Car free week online survey also shows an increase during

winter time as it goes from 13.5 percent going home with car during

spring/summer compared to 16.2 percent during autumn/winter.

29

A remarkable, but yet understandable, thing is that no one cycles to and home

from school during winter time. 14.3 percent of the school children that cycle to

and from school during summer/spring time are being driven instead while the

rest walks. A reasonable explanation is the change in weather conditions as

Swedish winter tends to be very cold, wet and slippery, which creates non-

friendly cycling environment that increases the risk of accidents. When spring

comes everyone are dusting off their bikes, preparing the sneakers while during

winter it is not possible to be active in the same extent. For example, one of the

responders stated that during spring/summer time the transport mode was mainly

cycling, while during autumn/winter the school children were driven to school. As

an answer to the question about reason to drive their children the parent wrote an

own comment stating “it is too cold in the morning”.

4.2.2 Reasons for driving children

The previous diagrams (Figures 3-6) do only show how the children usually get to

school, but of course there are exceptions that cause a temporary change with the

choice transport mode. There was a question investigating in how often people

drive their children to school. The question was not mandatory to answer if people

did not drive their children at all. 18 out of 37 responders answered the question

and the distribution can be seen in Figure 7.

.

Figure 7: Distribution of answers to the question "How often, in average, does your child/children get

driven to school?"

The reasons behind driving their children to school were different depending on

the number of times during the week that the children get driven. The reason for

the majority of the people who answered had to do with either being in a hurry or

dropping off children at school on the way to work. The rest had reasons such as

30

traffic safety concerns (7.1 percent) or school being too far away from home (21.4

percent).

The distance between home and school was not longer than 2.0 km for anyone,

except one responder that stated the distance was more than 3.0 km. The same

responder explained it by presenting himself as the father of a child and that the

parents are divorced and that they take turn, one week each is spent with the child

which also affects the transport mode:

We are divorced; I (the father) live south of Stockholm but work in northern

parts. The mother lives in Nacka, every other week our daughter walks and

the other weeks she gets driven. Unfortunately the Car free week was during

my week.

In this type of case one can understand that the situation is, compared to the

majority, extreme and is not really the target for the Car free week. Especially

children of young age like the ones attending Vilans School. If one would like to

promote sustainable transport even for this case then proposing designated spots

to park and walk the last distance to school can be one way of doing so.

The main target is people that do not have a remarkable distance to school but do

take the car because they think it is faster, and these are the targets of the Car free

week. For example, a parent of a school child in grades F-2 stated that they drive

the child to school 1 time per week and that the reason for this is because “the

parent needs the car for work”. They have also stated that the distance between

home and school is the shortest available of the online survey, 0-0.99 km.

One can argue that this type of travel behaviour is harmless not something to

worry about, but one needs to be cautious when it comes to comfort. Hillman,

Adams and Whitelegg (1990) highlighted the importance of children being

exposed to the local environment for their own personal and social development:

less driving to school means more socializing which affects their social

characteristics in a positive way. Anund et al., (2013) argued that parents can see

the act of driving their children to school as a good investment that, from their

perspective, is a way of spending time and showing commitment. This is not how

children see it as Tillberg (2001) argues that they value time spent at home with

their parents higher than the car journey.

4.2.3 Travel behaviour during, and after the Car free week

However, 29,7 percent of the responders claimed that the distance between home

and school is 1,00-1,99 km, and approximately one sixth of that group drive their

children 2-3 times a week, and another sixth drive their children 4-5 times a week.

Those groups are the main targets of the Car free week. It is therefore gratifying to

study the choice of transport mode during the Car free week, to see if there had

been any short term changes. Considering that week 17 is the early stages of

Swedish spring, it is reasonable to compare the numbers for the Car free week

31

with the spring/summer period, which also is the better period for active travel. If

there was a Car free week during autumn/winter time, it would have been possible

to capture the effect of the Car free week for two different time periods.

The share of car transportations had been reduced to 5.4 percent and active travel

had been increased to reach 91.9 percent, see Figure 8.

Figure 8: Distribution of answers to the question "How did the child/children get to and home from

school during the car free week?"

This means that amount of children being driven to school has decreased from

13.5 percent to 5.41 which is a very good result statistically as approximately 60

percent of those who were driven home from school are now walking or cycling.

Possible reasons behind their change are discussed in a paragraph further down.

The responders were also asked to answer questions about how the transport

behaviour has changed after the Car free week had ended, see Figure 9.

32

Figure 9: Distribution of answers to the question "Has the Car free week affected the choice of

transport mode to and home from school after the event as well?"

The results were positive in comparison with how it looked like before the Car

free week as the share of children who are driven to school still is lower.

However, in comparison with the Car free week the results have gone in the

wrong direction. 11.1 percent answered that they still get driven to school, which

if compared to the spring/summer statistics is a small improvement from 13.5

percent. The group that answered that the child/children use active transport

instead of going with car (13.9 percent) are parents that never took their children

with car more than 2-3 times a week, and are usually not using the car as transport

mode according to previous answers.’

Statistically, the results were most positive during the Car free week. This is not

an unimaginable scenario since the municipality and schools are preparing and

informing both children and parents to take part in the event. It becomes like a

short trend that as many school children as possible want to take part of. When the

event has ended, so does some of the interest in continuing with active travel and

most of the parents go back to their regular routines. There is also a possibility

that the long term effects come along with improved weather conditions. As

earlier presented, the difference between children being driven to school during

summer and winter time is 3 percent, as the share goes from 24 percent during

winter to 21 percent during summer (Trafikverket, cited in Westman, 2017). The

Car free week event occurs during late spring, early summer, and more and more

children are being driven to school according to previous reports which can have

affected the results for the online survey. However, as Nacka municipality aims to

decrease car usage and is promoting sustainable transport this should be seen as a

successful event, since the statistics show that it has had some effects - first and

foremost a short term effect with potential for more to be done for future events.

33

What is interesting is that 67.5 percent of the responses from the online survey

where representing school children in grades F-2, which corresponds to children

between ages between 6 and 8. This group is not fully biologically developed to

stay alone in traffic (Trafikverket, cited in Åström, 2011), yet the results show that

the entire group is using active travel as transport, where 36 % of them are not

accompanied by adults. The reasons behind this are, for this study, unknown but a

possible explanation can be a combination of distance and good infrastructural

design for cyclists and pedestrian which results in a sense of security in the area.

The online survey was only conducted with Vilans School, and it showed that The

Car free week had a positive impact on the travel behaviour. The percentage of

children going with car to school is much lower comparing the statistics with

numbers for the entire nation – 13.5 percent during spring/summer time and 16.2

percent during autumn/winter compared to the numbers for Sweden in general

from 2012 which are 18 percent during spring/summer and 24 percent during

autumn/winter (Trafikverket, cited in Westman 2017). With the improvement that

came along with the Car free week, Vilans School remains a good case of low

share of car driving nationally. Furthermore, Vilans School had already been

showing good results in the work with active travel earlier as Scholz (2018)

explained that the school also takes part in a national walk and cycle contest. The

school has had successful results in it and even won the entire competition in

2014. With this information it makes sense that the school would like to

participate in the Car free week and that parents/guardians are interested in

answering questions about their travel behaviour, as it is seen as positive from a

sustainable travel perspective. This also means that other schools in Nacka

municipality probably will have less promising results and that the share of active

travellers is lower.

4.3 Traffic concern outside schools

Areskog (2018) believes traffic situation at and around schools have been

improved during the Car free week as an outcome of fewer cars which in turn

results in a calmer environment, especially for active travellers. Each school gets a

banner at the entry to inform that the car free week is active which also informs

everyone and is perceived to work as a reminder for everyone to take it easy

during the Car free week, which has contributed to a calmer traffic situation.

The interviewees do however show concern about the traffic around the school in

general and are worried for the safety of everyone in traffic, not just active

travellers. The municipality of Nacka picture the environment around schools to

be unsafe for active travellers generally and the Car free week is one of more

attempts to create a safer environment around schools. Areskog (2018) do include

public transport as a legitimate transport mode during the Car free week and

shows understanding for parents that really do not have any other choice rather

34

than taking the car. However, she wishes to see some engagement even from

those parents:

We encourage parents that do not have any other alternative but using the car

to park their car on a designated spot further away and walk the last part.

Doing so will avoid heated traffic situations with congestion at and around

school areas (Areskog, 2018).

Cars that take the children to school are obviously a part of this. However, one of

the main concerns with the traffic situation around schools has been people that

drive too fast. In the online survey, a parent of school children attending Vilans

school wrote following:

There are too many, both private cars and heavy construction vehicles, that

drive too fast from Finnberget to Vilans School, including bus drivers. The

worst ones are almost the SL-buses who never drive 30km/h outside the

school. Because of this we do not allow our children to walk or cycle alone a

couple of years to come.

The behaviour is recognizable from the literature review as Anund et al. (2013)

states that one of the main reasons for parents driving children to school is that

they see the car as protection for their children in order to avoid unwanted traffic

situations and the risks that exist on the road.

Timperio et al. (cited in Anund et al., 2013) explained that parents tend to see the

environments more dangerous than the children do and that by driving their

children to school they avoid what is believed to be dangerous situations. When

the quote from the parent about speeding was presented to Scholz (2018) she

agreed with that speeding occurs a lot. The comment about speeding was also

presented in the interview with Areskog, who recognized this type of traffic

behaviour outside schools. She states that speeding is a problem and that parents

experience it as unsafe and uses it as reasons to take their children to school with

car.

That in combination with the construction sites and their vehicles nearby the

school creates a generally messy traffic situation. Jacobsson (2018) also showed

concern about the traffic situation around the school but explains that

communication with children about it is very important as they talk about how

one must behave in traffic. The issues with traffic safety is bigger depending on

the school but what they have in common is “too many cars, stressed parents

which in turn creates an unsafe environment for those who already walk and cycle

who instead consider to use cars because of the risks active traveller gets exposed

to” (ibid., 2018). These situations all cause a negative impact on the surroundings

of the school which in turn will, as Timperio et al. (cited in Anund et al., 2013)

argued, be perceived as even worse from parents perspectives.

35

The situation gets contradictory when municipalities such as Nacka work hard

with promoting sustainable transport and encouraging people to use public

transport or active travel but at the same time experience public transport vehicles

that are violating traffic rules and contributing to an unsafe environment. The

outcomes can be devastating for both municipalities and public transport actors,

such as SL, as this increases car usage which is the opposite of what

municipalities and PT actors want. Decreased usage of PT also means less income

for SL, and is also an unwanted obstacle for municipalities in the work of

sustainable transport.

Areskog (2018) confirms that it is not unusual that buses do drive too fast around

school areas. This has lead to schools and parents wishing for speed control

measure, usually speed bumps:

We receive a lot of requests regarding speed bumps that we cannot fulfil for

different reasons. For example, we have built speed bumps, and SL has in

turn claimed that they are too big so that we eventually have been forced to

cut the bumps and making them smaller. It is a dilemma; one can think that

with the vehicle should experience no trouble driving according to given

rules (ibid., 2018).

An explanation to the fact that buses and bigger traffic are in focus when

discussing speeding can be the size of such vehicles: buses and construction

vehicles are bigger in size than regular cars and are, even if the private cars are

also speeding, perceived as more dangerous. This does not justify the speeding,

but can explane why the bigger vehicles are in focus when discussing traffic

safety issues. For the sake of: SL; the municipality and; citizens confidence for

SL, it is important to manage their correct manners without violating traffic rules

and contributing to unsafe traffic environment. Then there is the relation between

speed and amount of cars on the road. There is a risk of more speeding as more

school children use active travel to school and leave more space for cars which

means that cars can go faster. Looking at it that way, it means that an increase of

active travel could lead to higher speeds and a feeling of a more unsafe

environment. One can also look at it from the other perspective and claim that

fewer cars on the road would mean less unwanted congestion and less time loss on

the road which in turn entails calm drivers are not in a hurry and therefore have no

need to catch up time lost.

Fortunately, accidents rarely occur around the schools in the municipality, the

statistics are good (Areskog, 2018). So the actual traffic safety in terms of amount

of accidents is not bad, but the perceived picture of an unsafe environment around

schools leads to some people being rather considering using the car and this way

avoiding potential risks. One responder whose two children go to school with bus

commented that “it is not safe on the road. There is a construction site”.

36

Therefore, in order to investigate further in the flaws and perceived unsafe

infrastructure Nacka municipality should work more with feedback from parents

about the matter also during the Car free week. The day when Bogota went

through a car-ban day forced many citizens to dramatically change their travel

behaviour. Among outcomes Badiozamani (2003) mentioned feedback about

flaws with existing infrastructure arose which the government and municipalities

could use the data for further planning. In the same way, Nacka municipality can

use this data for planning purposes and their work for a better quality of the

infrastructure and be translated into policies. According to Areskog (2018), there

is no direct feedback from the Car free week, the feedback is received throughout

the year, but a way for Nacka municipality to both increase commitment to the

Car free event could be to work more with potential feedback about flaws in

Nacka municipality, issues about traffic and commuting, and not focusing the

event purely on promoting sustainable transport.

4.4 Infrastructural influences

Areskog (2018) points out the importance of the design of the surrounding

infrastructure and that good planning of infrastructure is seen as a contributing

factor for traffic safety. She mentions that certain areas of Nacka municipality,

such as Fisksätra (area in Nacka municipality), are developed during a period

where cars where completely separated from walking and cycling paths, and

housing near schools which creates a safe environment for school children.

There are people who think that there is more space needed around schools

for driving children generally in the municipality and it is understandable.

However, the task from the politicians is not to go that way – there are set

priorities to promote sustainable transport (Areskog, 2018).

These types of requests should not be taken for granted, shows that the citizens’

care, even if they only think about their cause, they still take give feedback about

the urban development which is always good for planners at governmental

organizations. It gives another opportunity to inform and promote sustainability

directly with citizens’. The complaints of parents who want to drive to school and

need more space for cars, or the parent that stated that speeding is the main reason

to not let their child go to school alone – such is, or can be, useful information

about flaws with existing space just like Badiozamani (2003) argued, and can be

used for further urban development.

It would however, in this case, be a crucial planning mistake to design the

infrastructure so that there is more room for dropping of children, especially as it

only is (if even) needed during mornings and afternoon for a short period of time.

With the ongoing development of Nacka city (Nacka.se, 2018a) and the new

metro line (Nacka.se, 2018a) there is a need of working in the exact opposite way

making less space for car usage and in a way forcing citizens to adjust to the

situation. With less space for cars parents might reconsider and walk or bike to

37

school instead. However, there is a risk that it becomes more congested and the

worse conditions for active travellers – this is something that Nacka municipality

needs to prepare for.

4.5 Participation in the Car free week

Out of the 7 schools that were contacted with the request of sending out an online

survey, only one, Vilans School, showed interest. 9 schools in total will this

participate in the Car free which corresponds to approximately one third of the

entire municipalities amount of schools with grades F-6. There are in total 32

schools, including both municipal and private schools (Areskog, 2018). Areskog

(2018) states that the share has been around one third the past years and the

number of schools that take part it is something that the municipality wishes to

increase.

There can be different reasons behind why schools choose not to participate in the

Car free week event, Areskog mentioned that schools might be careful with what

they encourage parents to do. Schools want to get along with parents and maintain

a good relationship between the administration and parents – such relationship

might be jeopardized if one suggests how other people should act.

To encourage parents not to use car can be a sensitive subject for schools.

Parents can get irritated since they want to take the car to school, park for a

short moment, and then continue with their day. (Areskog, 2018)

Vilans School have participated in the Car free week the last two years, making

this their third year. School children’s attitude towards the Car free week is one

reason behind their recurring participation in the event. The school children enjoy

taking part of the event; this is however further presented and discussed in the

next section. According to Scholz (2018), a strong influencer for the participation

has been the involvement of Nacka municipality. When the municipality is

involved parents tend to take these types of events more seriously.

Another thing that is positive is that it feels like parents are more committed

when the event is arranged by the municipality. The information provided by

municipalities, “Car free week”-banner, cycle repairer and such things all

motivate parents in a way that I think we, as a school, would not be able to

do if we hosted a similar event on our own initiative. We appreciate Nacka

municipality and the work they do around these events, we are thankful.

Even the work you (the researcher) are doing with the online survey

increases the level of commitment and involvement for the Car free week,

both for parents but also for us, the school administration and employees.

(Scholz, 2018)

It seems as the bigger the event is in terms of involvement of organisations and

people outside the school the higher the commitment from parents and school

children is. Even an online survey that is conducted from a student increases

interest and curiosity with parents. The involvement of organisations seems to

38

have impact on the schools and should, considering data received from, be taken

seriously for future activities and events like the Car free week. Cooperating with

neighbouring municipalities, inviting organisations and generally increasing

involvement is a measure that can encourage more parents, school children, and

employees to use active travel. Furthermore, Badiozamani (2003) argued that

when a wide group of stakeholders involve in these events together with citizens

that a feeling of participation planning is created. If Nacka municipality managed

to involve more organisations and widen the participation, and making the event

more visible for societies in Nacka, there is a possibility of increased participation

in the Car free week and valuable feedback for their planning of urban

development.

4.6 School children’s attitude towards the Car free week and active

travel

The Car free week is one way that Nacka municipality encourages school children

and their parents to leave the car and use active travel instead, and is an intern

event for the municipality. However, there is a national ‘walk and cycle’ contest

event which occurs during the autumn that the municipality of Nacka also sees as

a good opportunity for the schools and therefore also encourages them to take part

in it (Areskog, 2018). As mentioned earlier, one school in Nacka municipality

won the national contest in 2014 and it was Vilans School. The participation in

active travel events is something that Vilans School administration takes

seriously.

The school children get excited in connection with events like the Car free

week; they think it is fun with missions that they should perform. Even if the

Car free week is not a contest in the same context as the national walk and

cycle contest, they still enjoy taking part in these types of events. (Scholz,

2018)

Panter, Jones and van Sluijs (2018) argues that children are most likely to be

influenced by their parents, that children’s attitude towards everything in life

depends on how their parents act towards the same matter. Since children spend a

lot of time in school it is important to realize that teachers and school employees

have influence on school children’s behaviour. The effect of a teacher’s attitude

towards active travel is not necessarily the same as for parents, but it can be a

possible influencer for children, especially since they spend most of the time of a

day in school.

Jacobsson (2018) mentioned that the teachers at the Vilans School do talk a lot

about the cars and active travel and how this affects both environment and health.

She is in charge of a fourth grade class and teaches most of the subject. The effect

their work with active travel, and encouragement of being an active traveller, is

not only seen in the attitude towards active travel events, but also during the

actual school education where children show environmental awareness.

39

I see good commitment with the children regarding these matters. They are

very committed in environmental questions and it is also seen in class when I

have given them certain assignments. For example, we have started with

argumentative texts, and many have been writing about reducing car

emissions and not to use the car a lot. (Jacobsson, 2018)

This behaviour is both an effect of active travel events such as the Car free week,

but also an outcome of how the school influences children. Scholz (2018)

mentioned in the interview how she tries to take responsibility for children by

showing a good example:

One wants to lead by example, it is very important. I always walk or cycle to

the school, all year around, and I am not the only teacher who does it here.

Then I can get reactions from children like “are you taking the bike now??”

referring to bad weather conditions. But I try to talk with them and to “plant

a little seed” in them, it usually affects them. That is the important part, to

make them conscious about their actions and to help them realize that there

are other ways rather than using the car”.

The phrase that the teacher used, “plant a seed”, is a well representing metaphor

for how this type of influence actually can work. Parents, or teachers, can start

with awakening the thought of active travel, even if it at some points seem

ridiculous not to use the car. Arguments such as “dress warmer” generate thoughts

that eventually can grow into behavioural changes – it starts of as a seed, and then

grows. If infrastructural design has a big impact on active travel then the attitude

towards active travel from the school administration is just as important and the

way they encourage children to behave when travelling. There is nothing that can

assure that if you copy Vilans School, both design and infrastructural wise, and

place it somewhere else that it will have the same positive results with active

travel and being one of the most successful schools in Sweden. The social work

behind it, and education, is just as important, both to encourage and educate

school children but also their parents, excluding good or bad possibilities for

active travel to school. It has its effect and comments from the online survey show

that as some of the reasons that the parents gave for the travel behaviour changing

during the week were that the children were determined to walk/cycle during the

Car free week.

One of the outcomes of active travel presented in the literature review was that

children’s mental health and their daily travel is linked, and active travel can

affect stress, social skills, confidence and more social characteristics (Westman,

2017). This has to do with at what level of independence they currently are and it

affects their personalities (Hillman, Adams and Whitelegg, 1990). Zhao et al.,

(2017) argued that the school children’s cognitive functions and academic

performances also are affected; and studies have shown that active travel

contributes to positive feelings and stress reductions (Hillman et al.; Lambaise,

Barry, & Roemmich, cited in Westman, 2017). When discussing this with the

40

teachers during the interview, none of them claimed that they have seen such

changes with the school children. The only change they had noticed was that the

children were more excited about the actual event during the days of events, but

not any significant changes regarding energy levels, performance, concentration

or such characteristics. Both teachers did however state that even if there were

such changes during the Car free week or other active travel events, they did not

have it in mind to look for them and therefore have not paid attention to those

kinds of possible effects. Even if they did pay attention, there are no guarantees

that they would have noticed them during the week.

4.7 Parents’ attitude towards the Car free week

According to both Jacobsson (2018) and Scholz (2018) the school children of

Vilans School tend to show good attitude towards active travel as a way to get to

school. However, Scholz (2018) mentions that she does not get feedback from

parents in person, especially since she spends most of the time in the gymnasium

and does not encounter parents to the same extent as for example class

superintendents. But there are some parents that like to comment through e-mail

with, positive messages such as “What a good event!” or “arrange more of this

kind of events”.

The last question of the Car free week online survey gave the responders a

possibility of commenting anything that they feel belonged to the subject, and just

like Scholz (2018) had received positive comments about the Car free week,

parents had put comments in the Car free week online survey as well:

“Good attempt to reduce car travel!”

“Good initiative!”

“We think that this is a good initiative. Hopefully parents that drive their

children will realise that it is not dangerous for children to walk to school

and that the children appreciate it.”

There have been no negative comments about the Car free week which says that

the event is bad, and by evaluating the results of transport mode used during the

car free week it is clear that a large majority of the online survey do accept active

travel as a transport mode which indicates on positive attitude towards the Car

free week as well. However, it is difficult to generalize parents’ attitude towards

the Car free week and state that all parents think that the Car free week is a good

event. There is a risk that the responses are biased as those parents who have

responded might be supportive of the event while other parents, who might have

thought differently, did not bother to participate in the online survey. Furthermore,

the comments and primary data received from interviews and online survey only

represents Vilans School, and generalizing Nacka municipality with one school

would be absurd.

41

4.8 Environmental outcomes of the Car free week

Nieuwenhuijsen and Khreis (2016) stated that a reduction of cars affects the

environment in positive ways such as less polluted air but also more room for

green space, and Topp and Pharaoh (1999) included less noise pollution as a

positive outcome of the car-free city centre of Lübeck. However, none of the

teachers considered noise pollution as a problem around the school; neither did

the online survey receive complaints about noise or air pollution. The sense of that

the school is not affected by pollution is understandable: The school is optimally

placed with small wood areas surrounding it making it kind of isolated from

traffic. With the speed limit of 30 km/h it barely affects the school sound wise, in

spite of some driver violating the traffic rules by speeding. General traffic is also

separated from the school yards and makes the area a safe environment. This is a

crucial factor for increasing active travel – suitable designed infrastructure.

Figure 10: Photo showing the separation of the school (left) and the traffic (right). Taken 2018

4.9 General discussion

Unfortunately for this study, only one school out of 32 schools is not enough to

make a generalization of Nacka municipality as a whole. However, the fact that

Vilans School has been nationally recognized as successful in the area of active

travel makes the school very useful in terms of how to continue with the work of

sustainable transport and promote active travel. Surely one could find

improvements for Vilans School and how to improve the numbers even more to

42

create an optimal scenario, but right now the school is a good example and is most

probably the leading school in active travel in Nacka municipality. Other schools

can learn from how Vilans School administration works with the issue and Nacka

municipality can use it as a planning reference since infrastructure surely has a big

part in it as the researcher argues.

The fact that the event is voluntary can also be questioned. A possible way to

improve the participation in the Car free week for Nacka municipality can simply

be to make the event mandatory. Choice of transport mode would still be up to the

parents, but the municipality could, for instance, provide all schools that are

targeted in the event with a Car free week banner. This way, the municipality

highlights the event as something everyone takes part of, but does not force

parents to choose the car. Then the different school administrations can choose to

what extent they want to promote this – to see it as an opportunity, like Vilans

School, or just ignore it and leave the banner hanging. Such improvement could

affect parents and children at schools who otherwise do not participate in the Car

free week. This can of course be sensitive and is not just a job for planners, but

also for politicians to be involved as they can make such decisions – at least for

public schools.

Even though only one school was studied, the results showed positive outcomes

of the Car free week event. Even a school that already works a lot with promoting

active travel, which has been nationally awarded for their result, showed a change

of travel behaviour in the positive direction with reduced car usage. Even if the

effects were mainly short term, it is a proof that the event is successful and has

more potential than just having short term effects if Nacka municipality keeps

working with these types of events when promoting sustainable transport.

43

5 Conclusions

The aim of this study has been to investigate what role the Car free week has in

for planning in Nacka municipality. It has also aimed to investigate how the travel

behaviour of school children in Nacka municipality changes with the

implementation of the Car free week. At last the aim has also been to gain a

deeper understanding in what factors have impact on travel behaviour for school

children. The following conclusions have been drawn based on the findings and

results of this study.

The municipality of Nacka consider the Car free week as a measure to promote

sustainable transport. Nacka municipality are implementing the Car free week for

multiple reasons, including the possibility of potential outcomes such as health

improvement and developing healthy habits for school children. However, the

main purpose is to ensure that active travellers feel safe and not be negatively

affected by car drivers. Safe traffic environment increases comfort levels for

active travellers which in turn can lead to a decrease in car usage and increase in

active travel.

The participation of schools in the Car free week has positive outcomes for the

school children’s travel behaviour. During the event, the school children become

more environmentally conscious and are thinking more in paths of sustainable

transport which leads to a decrease in school children being driven to school, and

an increase for those who walk and cycle. After the event, the effects of the Car

free week seem to have subsided a bit regarding travel behaviour, as some of the

school children get back to old habits, and being driven. However, the event had a

positive effects even after its finished as the share of children who are driven to

school have decreased compared to the travel behaviour before the event.

There are many factors that play a role for children’s travel behaviour. Parents’

attitude toward car usage is one of the main influencer for children. Children learn

from their parents and value things, almost to the same extent, like their parents. If

parents see the car as crucial for good quality of life, so will the children.

Furthermore, the way parents perceive the environment around schools has an

impact as a perceived unsafe environment can lead to them deciding to take their

children with car. Traffic safety is usually connected with the infrastructural

design and schools insulation from car traffic, as well as drivers’ behaviour

around schools – these factors also impact on the choice of transport mode.

Furthermore, a part that plays a big role for school children’s travel behaviour is

schools administration, more precisely the school children’s teachers. Children

spend most of their time during weekdays in school, where they take in

impressions and information from their classmates and teachers. The work of

teachers and their educative approach influences school children to that extent that

it can cause changes in their travel behaviour.

44

5.1 Suggestions associated with future Car free week events

For future work with the Car free events of Nacka municipality, following

suggestions have been made based on the results and conclusion of this study:

• Nacka municipality should invest more time in informing parents, school

children and school administration about upcoming events is something

that increases excitement for school children and their parents.

Commitment from the municipality is positively valued from parents and

works as a motivator to participate in such events.

• Just like the municipality has a motivational impact for parents, so is the

case when other organizations are taking part of the event. Increasing

outsiders’ participation such as organizations, newspapers, companies and

others will increase the commitment to events like the Car free week.

• Events like the Car free week are good opportunities for municipalities to

collect qualitative data about the urban environment. It should be used as

participation planning for citizens as it is possible to receive feedback

about flaws, inconsistencies and concerns directly from parents, schools

and school children from certain areas.

5.2 Suggested further research

This study has explored that the Car free week has positive outcomes regarding

travel behavior and in the work of promoting sustainable transport, even for a

school that already has been recognized nationally as a successful school for the

matter. To include more schools in a study will enable the possibility of collecting

more information about the reasons for choosing certain transport modes to school

– information that is valuable for municipalities and their work with sustainable

transport.

Findings showed that teachers have more influence than maybe expected. Further

research of schools administrations and their educative process with school

children about sustainable travel will add deeper understanding of the role that

teachers have for school children in the choice of transport mode.

This study has contributed to the understanding of what affects children in their

choice of transport mode. It has provided information and results that can be

useful for other schools, parents and municipalities when attempting to influence

children. This can in turn lead to an improved environment around schools and

contribute to ecologic sustainability, which is a requirement to achieve a

sustainable development in the society.

45

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7 Appendix A

The Car free week online survey (Vilans skola)

1. How many children of yours are currently in grades F-6?*

• 1

• 2

• 3 or more

1.1 Follow-up question: Which year does/do the child/children attend?*

If there is more than one child attending one interval, feel free to enter this in the

empty box: for example: 2 children in F-2. If there are more children attending

different intervals, please enter it in de empty box, for example: 1 child in year 4,

1 child in year 5.

• F-2

• 3-4

• 5-6

• :_______

2. How far away from home is the child’s/childrens’ school?*

• 0-0,99 km

• 1,0-1,99 km

• 2,0-2,99 km

• 3,0 km or more

Following questions (3-8) are referring to travel behaviour for children before the

Car free week, that is before week 17 (earlier than 23rd of April).

3. How does/do the child/children usually get to school during spring/summer

time (april-october)?*

• By walking

• Cycling

• Bus/public transport

• Car

3.1 Follow-up question: Accompanied by adult?

• Yes

• No

51

4. How does/do the child/children usually get home from school during

spring/summer time (april-october)?*

• By walking

• Cycling

• Bus/public transport

• Car

4.1 Follow-up question: Accompanied by adult?

• Yes

• No

5. How does/do the child/children usually get to school during autumn/winter time

(November-March)?*

• By walking

• Cycling

• Bus/public transport

• Car

5.1 Follow-up question: Accompanied by adult?

• Yes

• No

6. How does/do the child/children usually get home from school during

autumn/winter time (November-March)?*

• By walking

• Cycling

• Bus/public transport

• Car

6.1 Follow-up question: Accompanied by adult?

• Yes

• No

7. How often, in average, does the child get driven to school?

• 1 day a week

• 2-3 days a week

• 4-5 days a week

52

7.1 Follow-up question: Why does the child get driven to school?

• School is too far away from home

• School is on the way to work

• It’s faster

• Low frequency of busses

• Bus stop to far away

• Traffic safety issues

• Other: ______

8. How often, in average, does the child get driven home from school?

• 1 day a week

• 2-3 days a week

• 4-5 days a week

8.1 Follow-up question: Why does the child get driven home from school?

• School is too far away from home

• School is on the way home back from work

• It’s faster

• Low frequency of busses

• Bus stop to far away

• Traffic safety issues

• Other:______

Following questions (9-10) are referring to travel behaviour for children during

the Car free week, that is during week 17 (between 23rd and 27th of April).

9. How did the child/children get to and home from school during the Car free

week?*

• By walking

• Cycling

• Bus/public transport

• Car

9.1 Follow-up question: Accompanied by adult?

• Yes

• No

10: Please comment on why the choice of transport mode has, or has not, changed

during the Car free week:

53

:______________

Following questions (11-13) are referring to travel behaviour for children after the

Car free week, that is after week 17 (after 28th of April).

11. Has the Car free week affected the choice of transport mode to and home from

school after the event as well?*

• Yes, the child/children walks/cycles instead of going with car

• Yes, the child/children are going with bus instead of with car

• Yes, the child/children walks/cycles instead of going with bus

• Yes, the child/children are going with bus instead of walking/cycling

• No, the child/children still walk/cycles

• No, the child/children still goes with the bus

• No, the child/children still get driven to school

12. Feel free to comment on why the choice of transport mode has or has not

changed after the Car free week:

:________

13. If You have other comments, opinions or remarks regarding the Car free

week, the public transport, traffic situation around the school, or anything else,

comment here:

:________

If you would like to take part in the raffle of movie tickets, please enter your e-

mail addresses below. The answers for this survey will not be connected with your

e-mail address.

:________

54

8 Appendix B

Semi-structured interview with Marianne Areskog

1. Tell me about the work with the Car free week:

- For how many years has Nacka municipality worked with it

- Why?

2. Does the Car free work also work as a source of qualitative data for the

planners of Nacka municipality?

3. What are the effects of the Car free week, from both your personal perspective

and your from others?

- Environmentally?

- Traffic safety?

4. Complaints about speeding have been noticed in the online survey. Do you

agree on it being a problem?

- Only outside schools?

- Generally in Nacka?

5. Other comments or questions to me?

55

9 Appendix C

Semi-structured interview with Stina Scholz and Camilla Jacobsson

1. Has the school participated in the Car free week earlier previous years?

- How come?

2. How do you see the Car free week and the importance of the schools

participation?

3. How did you as P.E.teacher/super classintendent feel that the children were

during the Car free week?

- Energy wise

- Concentration

- Socially

- Cognitive performance

4. Have parents commented/provided any type of feedback about the Car free

week?

5. How does the school employees feel about the traffic situation during mornings

and afternoons?