Towards safer, more walkable urban environments for child-pedestrians - application of the theory of Planned behavior

Abstract

Although walking, the most ancient mode of transportation, offers a variety of physical, mental and environmental health benefits, it is not without challenges. Road crashes are one of the main causes of injuries and fatalities worldwide, with pedestrians being a major risk group. Aiming to create a safer, more walkable urban environment for child-pedestrians, the main goal of the present study was to explore the factors that motivate them to engage in unsafe situations. Hence, this study was aimed at examining child participants’ attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions, as psychological factors that influence their behavior when crossing roads, in order to study the extent to which they influence child-pedestrians’ decisions and intentions. Using fixed and dynamic urban crossing scenes, a variety of direct (i.e., participants' self-report) and indirect measures (i.e., quality measurements obtained by observing participants’ performance and analyzing the behavior) were collected and analyzed. 129 elementary-school children filled in demographic, sensation seeking and TPB questionnaires, and performed crossing decision and rating tasks. Findings suggest that using several evaluation measurements aids the performance assessment process. Implications towards improving children’s safety and their wellbeing aiming to develop safer, more walkable urban environments are discussed.