Active school travel in practice: parental perceptions and municipal perspectives on active school travel

Abstract

Children’s active school transport (AST) has received increasing attention in Sweden in relation to public health, sustainability, traffic safety, and children’s independent mobility. Despite this, several studies show that fewer children walk or cycle to school today compared to previous decades. Against this background, this thesis explores how children’s school travel is shaped through the interaction between parental decision-making, perceptions of traffic safety, everyday routines, and broader planning conditions. The study uses Johannebergsskolan in Gothenburg as a case study and focuses on children attending preschool class to grade six. The study also examines how planners and practitioners in Swedish municipalities understand and work with challenges related to AST. The thesis applies a mixed-method case study design combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The empirical material consists of a survey conducted with parents and guardians connected to Johannebergsskolan, alongside four semi-structured interviews with planners and practitioners working with AST-related issues in the municipalities of Gothenburg, Uppsala, Eskilstuna, and Enköping. The findings show that traffic safety, distance to school, and the built environment remain important factors influencing school travel behaviour. At the same time, the results demonstrate that everyday logistics, convenience, time pressure, and broader mobility routines strongly shape parental decisions regarding children’s journeys to school. The interviews further highlight that municipalities often experience difficulties in changing established travel behaviours, even where investments in infrastructure and traffic safety measures have been implemented. Overall, the study suggests that AST cannot be understood solely as an infrastructural or traffic safety issue. Instead, children’s school travel appears closely connected to broader everyday mobility practices and social norms surrounding parenting, responsibility, and urban mobility. The findings therefore indicate that promoting AST requires approaches extending beyond physical planning interventions alone.