Ivana Paulusová Thesis on School Bikeability Awarded

Ivana got the highest score from the jury members among all the submitted theses. The award is organized by Cykelfrämjandet for research conducted around the topic of cycling. Her thesis was published in 2023, under supervision of Fariya Sharmeen, associate professor at Transport and System Analysis.

Cykelfrämjandet is the Swedish national cycling advocacy organisation. They work to improve conditions for all cyclists in Sweden, and to convince more people to choose bicycles for everyday use.

Currently, Ivana is a PhD student in the project Bike2Green  which aims to provide financial and other incentives for promoting active travel to work and school. Her focus is specifically on accessibility and equity in cycling.

School bikeability index: A case study of primary schools in Stockholm

Paulusová, Ivana

Abstract

Fulltext in DiVA

Despite the recognised positive benefits of cycling overall and for school children specifically, in most developed countries, a decline rather than an increase in active travel to and from school has been observed during the past few decades. In recent years, the concept of bikeability (or bicycle accessibility) emerged, and together with it various bikeability indices that enable to assess the bicycle friendliness of a location and contribute to prioritization of future investments. However, despite the recognition of specific children’s needs regarding road safety, this study is, to the best of my knowledge, a first one developing a bikeability index that reflects the needs of children on their way to and from school. By reviewing existing streams of (school) accessibility, walkability and urban cycling literature, the study constructs a new school bikeability index and provides a case study of applying the index to primary schools in Stockholm, Sweden, using GIS data. The index, consists of 14, mainly built environment, indicators, weighted by the subjective importance scores assigned to them by children’s caretakers from Stockholm. The case study reveals differences in school bikeability across the focus area. Even the schools that obtained the highest relative score largely lack a cycling infrastructure that would be suitable for children. Further, the study revealed that many schools could significantly improve their bikeability by implementing school-specific measures such as providing bicycle parking, school zone signage or connecting the school entrance with a cycle path or lane directly. Moreover, it revealed shortcomings of the available data regarding cycling infrastructure that Stockholm holds, especially when it comes to reflecting upon the needs of children. Lastly, it has been suggested to consider important interconnectedness among certain indicators for future enhancement of the index and reflect upon varying preferences of certain groups of cyclists and non-cyclists.