ABSTRACT
In the United States, most cities are car-centered, and some experience harsh weather conditions that make it difficult to walk or bike to their destinations (Ecomobility, 2022).
According to some authors, travel distance and travel time are described as having a great influence on travel mode choice (Ribeiro et al., 2020), especially among economically vulnerable university students, who might not be able to afford some of the recommended “sustainable modes of transport”. A handful of universities that were planned as car-oriented have faced problems related to the extensive v. intensive use of cars, such as the lack of parking places, traffic noise and pollution, visual impacts, and land consumption, among others (Barata et al., 2011, Dell’Olio et al., 2018).
This paper reviewed published studies that focus on students and their mobility choices to attend campus. Additionally, the factors that make students opt for different modes of transportation were explored and future opportunities related to sustainable mobility on university campuses were highlighted.
Keywords: students' mobility patterns, university community members' mobility, students’ mobility choices.
University students face many challenges when starting their higher education journey, especially those related to mobility. Depending on the university and its location, the socioeconomic and racial diversity among students could be vast and this is going to determine their lack or variety of mobility choices to travel to campus. Students living around campus usually walk or bike to classes, in the same scenario but under harsh weather conditions, the same students would take the bus, while others that own a car will drive to campus. The availability of these mobility choices is going to be dictated by the socioeconomic, psychological, and geographical backgrounds of the students.
This paper aims to describe the most common mobility choices available for students to attend campus and offer critiques of these modes of transport. This study is outlined in three parts: Part I: Mobility Choices to Attend Campus seeks to explain the available choices of mobility to travel to campus. Part II: Exploring and Uncovering the Factors that Make Students Opt for Different Modes of Mobility, identifies the limitations according to the students’ backgrounds that they find when choosing a mode of transport. And Part III: Mobility on Campus: Future Opportunities for Students, highlights new proposals for sustainable mobility projects on university campuses.
PART I: MOBILITY CHOICES TO ATTEND CAMPUS
University campuses are geographically fixed and students thus have agency in their choice of where to go to school. However, because of economic restrictions, many are limited in terms of their selection for housing as well as the mobility options available to them (Abercrombie, 1974; Bozick, 2007; Kamruzzaman et al., 2011). Universities are large and pivotal trip generators that for so long have been neglected by transportation/city planners and this has resulted in the lack of efficient mobility choices for students to attend campus.
The current literature on mobility choices for students traveling to campus shows that the most common are buses, bikes, walking, electric scooters, private cars, and light rails which are notoriously present in urban areas. While a rural campus tends to present horizontal connectivity which comprises complete street layouts like sidewalks, bike lanes, bus lanes, curb cuts, and green areas to connect the different schools across campus (Social Safe Urban Design, n.d.), an urban campus tends toward vertical connectivity, which focuses on enabling areas going upward from the ground; it involves looking beneath the land for underground transportation, service, and uses, as well as their relationship to the uses and structures above ground (Lin, n.d.). Rural campuses are more automobile dependent than urban ones (Balsas, 2003). Although most campuses do not entirely exclude the automobile, walking is the expected way to get around even though other ways of transportation may also be possible.
In some regions, university students barely use the bus, and stakeholders demand that city planners develop sustainable mobility projects for the city like bike lanes or scooter sharing
systems, but do they value the students’ opinions to design these? Do city planners ask students what’s their mobility vision for the university campus? Or they are simply choosing for them? There is a possibility that urban planners may have exacerbated this situation by not doing enough to include students in the process of planning, like meetings on campus instead of asking them to attend the city hall or public offices and therefore, their thoughts on mobility alternatives for the campus are not being heard. Furthermore, stakeholders who made the funding available to implement these strategies to advance mobility may feel discouraged to invest capital in sustainable modes of transportation.
According to Cattaneo et. al. (2018), each one of these modes of transportation has its limitations and many of them are because of the lack of collaboration and comprehension between planners and the community members, in this case, the students on campus. In urban areas, the bus was the second most adopted mode of transport according to Ribeiro et. al., (2020) because the routes are more connected, and the number of stops is greater than in rural zones.
Biking and walking are active modes of transport as long as people don’t travel more than 5 miles which is the recommended distance before feeling discomfort in your body. For traveling distances above these limits, people usually prefer to use motorized modes (Ribeiro et. al., 2020). While electric scooters have a limited distance due to their batteries' power which only lasts up to one hour. These limitations discourage students from using alternative modes of transportation and leave them with no choice but to use a private car as their main means of transport to go to campus.
For urban planners to deconstruct the misconception among students that cars are more convenient than other forms of transportation, they need to change cities, no favorable outcome on campus is possible if the city where it is located is dysfunctional. Göçer et. al., (2018) claim
that the car allows more flexibility to arrive and depart at the desired time and the freedom and independence given by the car have been also reported as a reason for driving to universities. Analyzing the authors' overall perception of the car, it is conspicuous that the benefits they are attributing to the car are rural-based, if we shift our focus to the cities, cars have increased the number of traffic jams and collapsed major arteries, resulting in road users like university students spending more time commuting from their homes or workplaces to campus, preventing them from being on time to their classes. However, one could argue that a car is very convenient when grocery shopping because carrying around all those bags on the bus or a bike can be physically taxing or even a dangerous task.
Meanwhile, combining two different modes of transport such as a bus-bike or bus-car is ideal and should be taken into consideration depending on the weekly activities. For instance, driving your car from home, parking it in a mobility hub and switching to a bike-sharing system, or riding the bus to get to campus. As well as biking to the bus stop, utilizing the bus bike rack to place your bike, and proceeding to ride the bus, are just a few scenarios of how students can diversify their mobility choices on a single trip.
Nonetheless, these alternative modes of sustainable transportation are deterred, and this could be due to the culture of owning a car that has been influenced by car-oriented cities. Moreover, the parking availability that many universities have facilitates the use of cars to travel to campus. Ribeiro et. al., (2020) assures that the main challenge for university administrators and urban planners is to address policies to shift mobility toward a more sustainable paradigm
To foster the values of sustainable mobility among university students and get them to opt for these modes of transport, beyond building the infrastructures that allow them to make use
of these means, it is necessary to build consensus and create a culture of sustainability. Otherwise, the efforts being made would be worthless. For the betterment of the students and the enhancement of the environment, it is imperative to uncover the factors that make students choose a certain mode of transportation. Knowing the roots of the issues will shed light on new strategies to awaken interest in alternative mobility among university students. Every vehicle on the road releases an average of one pound of CO2 per mile driven. Compared with driving alone, taking public transportation reduces CO2 emissions by 45%, decreasing pollutants in the atmosphere and improving air quality. It's estimated that public transportation in the U.S. saves 37 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, and even moderate increases in bicycle use each year could save an estimated 6 to 14 million tons (Andy Pei, 2021).
PART II: EXPLORING AND UNCOVERING THE FACTORS THAT MAKE STUDENTS OPT FOR DIFFERENT MODES OF MOBILITY
To understand the decisions that university students make when choosing different modes of transportation to campus or other destinations from the university premises, it is indispensable to expose the factors that drive them to do this and uncover the constraints that prevent them from opting for a more sustainable means of transport. Allen et. al., (2018) affirm that limitations in mobility and transport accessibility can potentially hinder scholastic achievement. Many university students have other responsibilities in addition to their studies, they may need to work to offset the high costs of tuition and other expenses, which leads them to prioritize their job over school, and this jeopardizes their academic performance. According to Ribeiro et. al., (2020) those who have compounded debt from tuition payments, and need to take employment to relieve their debt, have a greater risk of dropping out. The authors consider attending campus increases the opportunity for building peer networks and interacting with professors and other academic staff.
Students who usually opt to walk to campus are the ones that live close to it but this changes when the campus is in an area that experiences extreme cold weather like the Midwest region in the U.S. Unfavorable weather conditions have been described as a relevant barrier for walking, and particularly for cycling (Agarwal et. al., 2012; Stein et. al., 2018). The weather conditions are an important obstacle to using public transport. Walking to stops and waiting at stops in adverse weather conditions inhibits many people from using the bus. Based on a study conducted by Shaaban et al., (2016) the lack of real-time information about the service provided
is one of the main reasons that students are afraid of taking the bus during winter Scheduled delays caused by the unreliability of a potentially outdated and underfunded fleet experiencing extreme cold, could also trigger anxiety and psychological traumas.
The need for performing other activities before and after classes, living far from the campus, and the perceived unreliability of public transport services could be considered the primary reasons for driving to the university Shannon et al., (2006) suggest that travel time is the most important barrier preventing students and staff to switch to active modes In my experience, time and active modes of transportation are not mutually exclusive, this is quite different in every city. While in cities like Philadelphia students from many universities prefer to ride their bikes, scooters, or even the subway instead of the bus or their car because they might get stuck in traffic during rush hours. In other cities like Lansing, it is faster to move using a car due to the inefficient bus service. One thing is certain, time is subject to the geographical location of the university campus.
Travel mode choice also depends on the costs of traveling and parking on the campuses. Some authors found that students prefer to ride a bicycle to the university due to the lower costs of cycling (Fontalvo et al., 2018). Others like Barata et al., (2011) state that low parking fares usually encourage driving, which additionally causes overcrowded parking problems. Students from families with higher incomes are less likely to use active modes (Moniruzzaman et. al., 2018) and are more able to pay for parking (Dell’Olio et al., 2018).
Sharing the roadway with cars is a safety concern that also prevents many people from cycling to universities (Miralles-Guasch et. al., 2010) Understandably, traffic paint may not avert certain road accidents, but this is an issue that transportation planners and concerned authorities have been addressing by installing physical barriers and reflecting traffic signs to alert
drivers that those shared spaces of the road belong to cyclists and some ordinances have been created to support the development of more bike lanes. The willingness to change to other modes of transport is latent in the students’ minds.
Cattaneo et. al., (2017) suggest that hat informing students about environmental issues increases their propensity to use sustainable mobility, leading to an average decrease in private transport usage of 5.8 percent Addressing specific sustainable programs on this topic would have an impact in the short term, influencing students’ choices of transport to the university, and in the long term, because students are recognized as “future transport decision makers” (Kim et al., 2016). This opens a breach for urban planners to explore future opportunities for mobility on university campuses. It is mandatory to engage with the university community to obtain a better understanding of the issue and develop strategies that will lead to a more sustainable and comprehensively planned campus and host municipality.
PART III: MOBILITY ON CAMPUS: FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS
Many research papers have pointed out some opportunities for mobility on campus. Goodwin et. al., (2014) proposed a bike-sharing program that would move students faster to campus and from on-campus dormitories to classroom buildings In order to make the bikesharing program accessible, key staff and students must be involved to get the program going. Without user support for, and input regarding, key decisions, the project is condemned to failure.
Ribeiro et. al., (2020) suggest that higher parking fees can be combined with other policies to prevent students from using cars as their means of transport. For instance, not allowing first-year students to purchase parking licenses can reduce parking demand and encourage the use of alternative modes Additionally, students living near the campus could not be allowed to park on the campuses. As highlighted by Toor et. al., (2004), this measure has been efficient in reducing car trips to universities. Marketing campaigns for encouraging the use of sustainable modes may also have a positive impact in shifting towards more sustainable modes (Wilson et al., 2018). While these authors focused on prohibiting increasing the parking fees or preventing students from parking on the premises of the university, it is preferable to question their thoughts about these measures because they do not fall under the umbrella of comprehensive planning which emphasizes consensus building and incentivization, not punitive actions that meet the needs of some radical urban planners.
Enhancement of the public transport service in terms of frequency Several mobile applications that offer real-time information could be utilized to provide students with a new experience of accessing the bus routes and their status. The ability to track the next bus helps to limit the time spent anxiously waiting at an unheated stop in December and mitigate the time barrier impeding students from calculating their estimated time of arrival to their destinations.
Public transport provides travelers with an opportunity to rest, work or even move around (Johansson et al., 2006), making it more comfortable than driving. Promoting public transport is also a strategy that should be advertised regularly. Riding the bus allows students to contemplate and perceive the urban environment differently, they could catch up with some quick reading or brief their classmates about course-related topics. For this to succeed, it is essential to gather support from the stakeholders of the municipality where the university is located and organize meetings with the transportation authorities to formulate campaigns that target students and offer low fares if not free to captivate and cultivate their interest in the bus as a mode of transport to attend campus. A study conducted by the European Union called “Urban Mobility Package” (2013) found that the implementation of these measures increases student ridership and contributes to healthier communities.
CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS
The mobility choices that university students have at their disposal to attend campus are bound to their backgrounds, the environmental conditions, and geographical factors that prevent them from choosing other modes of sustainable mobility even if they are personally inclined to contribute to reducing the CO2 emissions by walking or biking to campus. Many university campuses are constantly growing either vertically or horizontally to expand their programs and enrollment capacity, therefore, decisions regarding parking, sustainable mobility, and green areas will need to be addressed. As a result, existing mobility plans need to be continually updated to assess the impacts that this new development could create on campus and in the surrounding environment. Universities must increasingly compete for students to attract financial resources. An effective way to appeal to prospective students is to come up with new modes of sustainable and affordable transportation for their students. The better understanding of the community mode choice provided in this study can help urban planners and administrators to develop new, and improve existing, policies. Urban planners must focus on reducing accessibility inequities in the cities. The first step towards an equitable city could start right on campus, where the precepts of mobility and a culture of experimentation can be harnessed among students. Inspiring and enlisting them in the process of building a more mobile campus for future generations of students and community members. This study provided insights into the various modes of transport for students to commute to campus and highlighted opportunities for future development in urban and sustainable mobility.
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Oliver Gomez, M.S., MURP, Michigan State University, Fall 2022