Exploring COVID-19 pandemic potential impacts on students’ school travel behavior

ABSTRACT

This study aims to identify the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on school trips using a survey of 1120 students and their households in Cairo, Egypt. We found that students' age, distance to school, and school type (public or private) influence the mode used to school, the majority of parents would prefer to wait for one month or more after the lockdown before sending their children to school, and the pandemic has a significant impact on parents' evaluation of the various schooling options. Based on the responses and using different scenarios, we predicted that the original vehicle-kilometers-traveled would increase by 17% to 34%, with most of the expected modal shift occurring from large occupancy vehicles to smaller vehicles. This shift was attributed to; the distance to school, the father's occupation and education level, parents waiting more time to send children to school, and parents expecting reduced class capacity. 

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• school trips
• students’ travel behavior
• mode choice
• Egypt

Abbreviation

VKT: Vehicle-Kilometers-Traveled; WHO:World Health Organization; EFA:Explanatory Factor Analysis; ICLV: Integrated Choice and Latent Models; PT: Public Transportation; PAX: Passenger; PCE: Passenger Car Equivalent.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (bmbf), project FuturTrans: Indo-German Collaborative Research Center on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Gemeinsames Indisch-Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Intelligente Verkehrssysteme and DAAD Project number 57474280 Verkehr-SuTra: Technologies for Sustainable Transportation, within the Programme: A New Passage to India — Deutsch-Indische Hochschulkooperationen ab 2019.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data is available for collaborations and further research projects; please get in touch with the corresponding author to review the data request. The survey data contains individual information and cannot be publicly shared.

Notes

1. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports/, last accessed 21, December 2021.

2. 1 USD = 15.7 EGP, in October 2020, source xe.com, accessed 15, December 2020.

3. We assume that preschool students perform their journeys accompanied by an adult.

4. We want to highlight the fact that during the survey design and collection period, there was no clear direction regarding when school would be resumed and if physical attendance would be mandatory or other schooling options would be available, as the digital infrastructure for online education is not advanced or stable in Egypt. So, in the questions, when we used the term post-pandemic or after the pandemic’s end, we meant that when the restriction on school attendance will be lifted and students would be allowed to attend schools in person.

5. Options iii and iv were followed in most of the schools in Egypt in the next academic year started October 2021.

6. this is a common practice in Cairo.

7. investigated in more detail in the next section.

8. www.tomtom.com/en_gb/traffic-index/ranking/?population=MEGA, last accessed 22 December 2021.