Understanding the complexity of children’s everyday mobilities: non-instrumental aspects in sustainable transport and planning policy making in Australia

ABSTRACT

There is a growing body of research recognising the complexity surrounding children’s mobilities influenced by multifaceted and relational factors. This is critical in the provision of an evidence base to better inform transport policies aimed at reducing private car usage in countries such as Australia where the private car dominates the everyday mobilities of families with school-aged children.This paper draws on quantitative and qualitative survey data from 296 children aged 9 to 18 and 84 parents living in Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia and investigates children’s travel behaviour for accessing their daily educational destinations (both school and extra-curricular activities). The paper utilises concepts such as “transport rationales” and “household elasticity” with an aim to determine the non-instrumental and relational configurations in children’s mobility. The findings reveal that children’s everyday mobilities and the decision-making behind the significant use of cars to transport children in Australia are highly complex and are based on more than instrumental reasons such as affect, care and comfort. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of Australian policies to address the high level of private car usage to transport children to their daily destinations.

KEYWORDS:

• Children’s mobility
• sustainable transport
• mode choice
• non-instrumental
• relationality

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hulya Gilbert

Hulya Gilbert is a Lecturer in urban and regional planning at La Trobe University. Her research focuses on policies on active transport, child friendly cities, healthy, socially and environmentally sustainable cities. Her PhD research explored the social and built environment related barriers to sustainable mobility and the carbon reduction potential of creating child-friendly precincts.

Ditte Bendix Lanng

Simon Wind is a special consultant in mobility at the City of Aarhus in Denmark. He holds a PhD in Mobilities studies and a MSc in Urban Design from Aalborg University, Denmark. Since 2009 Simon has researched, taught and worked in the intersection of urban and mobility design, method development and public transport. He has published several papers in academic journals amongst others Mobilities and Applied Mobilities.

Simon Wind

Ditte Bendix Lanng is an Associate Professor of urban design and mobilities at Aalborg University, Denmark. She researches place-based sustainable mobility and engages in situated research practices and design experiments as modes of interdisciplinary analysis and future making often in collective enterprises with public, communities, and policy, planning and architectural practice.

Andrew Allan

Andrew Allan is a Senior Lecturer in urban and regional planning at the University of South Australia. His academic expertise spans governance, transport and infrastructure planning, smart cities, regional science, planning for rural and regional areas and urban planning. Andrew’s current research focuses on sustainable mobility planning, zero-emission transport and the impacts of digital technologies on mobility.