Travel Behaviour and Society 16 (2019) 214–223

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Travel Behaviour and Society
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tbs

Children’s life satisfaction and travel satisfaction: Evidence from Canada,
Japan, and Sweden

T⁎

E.O.D. Waygooda, , Margareta Frimanb, Ayako Taniguchid, Lars E. OlssoncaÉcole supérieure d’aménagement du terroire et de développement régional (ÉSAD), FAS-1622, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
The Service and Market Oriented Transport Research Group (SAMOT)/CTF Service Research Center, Karlstad University, Universitetsgatan 2, 651 88 Karlstad, Swedenc
The Service and Market Oriented Transport Research Group (SAMOT), Karlstad University, Universitetsgatan 2, 651 88 Karlstad, SwedendDepartment of Risk Engineering, University of Tsukuba, 1 Chome-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture 305-8571, Japanb

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
ChildrenEveryday travel
Life satisfaction
Satisfaction with travel

Travel satisfaction has been linked to life satisfaction for adults, but no evidence exists currently for children’s
travel. Children’s travel diﬀers from adult’s in numerous ways including limitations related to independent travel
and available transport options. Children’s travel is often more local and their desire to explore and learn about
their environment may be higher than for adults. The importance of social interaction during travel or at locations may also be a greater consideration for children. Further, many of their destinations are pre-determinedsuch as going to school (not all adults work, but nearly all children of school age attend school). This paper
analyzes the relationship between travel satisfaction and life satisfaction for children aged 9–12 in Canada,
Japan, and Sweden (n = 425) using partial least squares structural equation modeling. In line with previous
ﬁndings among adults, the analyses show a signiﬁcant path from travel satisfaction to life satisfaction amongchildren, suggesting a moderate relationship. Unexpectedly, negative relationships for increased frequency ofnearly all mode uses (walking, bus, and car) on travel satisfaction (directly) and life satisfaction (indirectly) were
found, which may suggest that children do not enjoy frequent travel. These results suggest a relationship that is
likely important, but not necessarily in the ways anticipated.

1. Introduction
Research on the links between adult’s transport and well-being has
gained traction in the past few years (e.g. Abou-Zeid and Ben-Akiva,
2010; De Vos et al., 2013; Diener et al., 2009; Ettema et al., 2010;
Olsson et al., 2013; Stutzer and Frey, 2008). Evidence is accumulatingthat satisfaction with daily travel has important consequences forpeople’s life satisfaction (see review by Ettema et al., 2016). Recent
research on travel has theoretically and empirically explained how
everyday travel contributes to adult’s life satisfaction (e.g., Bergstad
et al., 2011; De Vos et al., 2013; Ettema et al., 2016). Theoretically, it isassumed that travel enables activity participation instrumental toachieving important goals in peoples’ lives, therefore increasing life
satisfaction (Ettema et al., 2010). Most of these studies have been
conducted with adults and mainly focused on their commute to work
(e.g. Olsson et al., 2013), with little known about how travel might
aﬀect children’s life satisfaction.
At least one child must travel in order for them to be physicallypresent with other children to play, interact, learn, and develop. Like

adults, children and young people travel on a daily basis to destinations
such as school, but their choices are often mediated by their parent(s)or guardians. As well, in many cases they are escorted (e.g. an adulttakes them) so their sense of control over such choices is likely diminished.
Children (under the legal driving age) cannot operate a motorized
vehicle, so their choices for independent travel is in most cases more
limited than that of adults. The existence of child-speciﬁc transportation modes such as school buses points to a number of diﬀerences between adult travel and children’s travel. Such diﬀerences would require
an investigation into the link between travel satisfaction and life satisfaction for children that is distinct from those conducted for adults.
We would argue that public health, transport, and school policies
should be informed by research showing what factors inﬂuence children’s life satisfaction. This study will examine whether travel satisfaction, as a domain of children’s lived experience, has any relationship with their overall satisfaction in life.

⁎

Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: owen.waygood@esad.ulaval.ca (E.O.D. Waygood), margareta.friman@kau.se, @FrimanSAMOT (M. Friman), taniguchi@risk.tsukuba.ac.jp (A. Taniguchi),lars.e.olsson@kau.se, @Lyckolars (L.E. Olsson).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2018.04.004
Received 22 November 2017; Received in revised form 23 April 2018; Accepted 25 April 2018

Available online 04 May 2018
2214-367X/ © 2018 Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Travel Behaviour and Society 16 (2019) 214–223

E.O.D. Waygood et al.

satisfaction. Important ﬁndings that may aﬀect travel satisfaction include experiences that children have as they walk and explore theirenvironment, stress associated to travel, and being allowed to conduct
autonomous/independent travel. Independent travel was discussed as
being related to cognitive tasks and child development (Kegerreis,
1993; Witten et al., 2015) such as taking responsibility to arrive atschool or to a bus on time, making risk assessments when crossing
streets, or exploring their environments. Thus, travel mode may aﬀect
satisfaction if it allows or limits such activities.
Travel with friends is seen as a desirable attribute of travel forchildren. Research has indicated that talking with friends is important
for their travel experience (Romero, 2010), and that cars may separate
children from their friends (Barker, 2006). Travel with a friend has
been found to be most frequent on trips by mass transit, followed by
active travel. It has been found to be very unlikely for trips by car(Waygood, 2018). As inter-personal relationships are important tochildren’s life satisfaction, such diﬀerences between the modes of travel
may indirectly inﬂuence overall life satisfaction. Thus, transport may
aﬀect satisfaction with life if it facilitates social interaction.
Further interactions between transport and life satisfaction likely
exist beyond simply facilitating social interaction. One study found thatwalking was a means of relieving stress for children (Murray and Mand,
2013) which could improve overall life satisfaction. Physical health isassociated to life satisfaction in children (Park, 2004), and active travelis associated with more overall physical activity in children (Schoeppe
et al., 2013). Learning how to get around by oneself and receiving the
conﬁdence of one’s parents to do so (i.e. independent travel) may be an
important inﬂuence on self-eﬃcacy (the belief in oneself to be able toaccomplish tasks). As well, in studies of Western children, the domainof self is important to life satisfaction. In Toronto, Canada, children who
frequently used bicycles were found to have higher feelings of self-esteem and control than children who did not use bicycles frequently (vanVliet, 1983). As these examples demonstrate, transport is a daily activity that is essential for one’s lived experience. As such, it could aﬀect
life satisfaction through access to activities that are beneﬁcial or detrimental. The relationships described above are not equally associatedwith diﬀerent transport modes, as such, it is possible that the diﬀerent
modes will have diﬀerent impacts on life satisfaction.
Taken together, there are many diﬀerent associations that suggest
travel attributes would be related to a variation in travel satisfaction. In
Fig. 1, we merge previous ﬁndings into a conceptual model, including
travel satisfaction and life satisfaction, to be tested in the present study.
The primary aim is to investigate the degree to which satisfaction withdaily travel contributes to life satisfaction among school children (aged
10–12). The model is not exhaustive but contains the main inﬂuencing
factors according to the existing literature. With further research, themodel can be reﬁned and expanded as necessary.
In the proposed conceptual model, life satisfaction is inﬂuenced byindependent mobility, social interactions, socio-demographic factors,
and satisfaction with travel. The model does not include satisfaction
with the domains typically studied (family, friends, school, self) byresearch on children’s life satisfaction, as the focus here is on travel. As
discussed above, autonomy and parental control relate to life satisfaction, so measures related to autonomy of travel and the level of parental
control are used. Although gender, age, and income are not found toinﬂuence life satisfaction (beyond extreme poverty), there are diﬀerences observed in the travel behavior of children with respect to thosemeasures. As such, both direct and indirect (i.e. through its inﬂuence on
travel choices) are theorized to have an inﬂuence. Social support andfriends are strong explanatory factors of life satisfaction which may
relate to children’s mobility patterns. Finally, we propose that if a childis not satisﬁed with their travel, this may be a result of restrictions
limiting their desire to interact with society. It could also be that thechild does not enjoy how they travel. As a reoccurring event, this could
negatively aﬀect their life satisfaction.
For a child’s satisfaction with travel, we propose that independent

2. Background2.1. Life satisfaction
In current research, life satisfaction is measured as a cognitive
judgment of life as a whole (Diener et al., 1985) built up by satisfaction
in diﬀerent life domains (Cummins, 1996). For children, life satisfaction
depends on how satisﬁed they are in diﬀerent life domains such as
satisfaction with self, school, family life, friends, and leisure (e.g.
Huebner, 2004; Park and Huebner, 2005; Seligson et al., 2003), though
the domains that are considered can vary (Proctor et al., 2009).
There are numerous inﬂuences on life satisfaction for children.
Social support is among the strongest explanatory variable of life satisfaction for children and youth (Park, 2004). For younger children,
family relationships are strongly correlated to life satisfaction. However, as they grow older relationships with friends and peers increases
as an explanatory factor (ibid). Parental control as well as parents
granting autonomy are associated with greater life satisfaction (Park,
2004; Huebner and Diener, 2008). Demographic variables (e.g. age,gender, and income) have not been found to inﬂuence life satisfaction,
though extreme poverty has a negative inﬂuence (Gadermann et al.,2010; Huebner, 2004).
In much research on children’s life satisfaction, questions relate tonumerous domains (e.g. Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction
Scale – MSLSS), but typically include an encompassing measure such asa general satisfaction with life. It is argued to be more meaningful toassess global or overall satisfaction, as an individual will use their own
set of criteria to determine the overall value (Proctor et al., 2009).
Children have been found to report consistently on life satisfaction
questions above grade 3 and it is weakly associated with social desirability response (Huebner and Diener, 2008). Related to this study,
overall life satisfaction has been found to vary over cultures, with youth
in more collectivist societies reporting lower scores (Park and Huebner,2005). One explanation is how the cultures use the scales (such as
Likert scales). North Americans and Americans are more likely to respond positively, where as Japanese are more likely to choose neutral
responses, (Chen et al., 1995; Lee et al., 2002). By comparing childreńs
life satisfaction in three diﬀerent countries, this study further contributes to this line of research.
As daily positive and negative experiences correlate to life satisfaction (McCullough et al., 2000), a hypothesis is that daily travelaﬀects life satisfaction. Previous work has found that “supportive parenting, engagement in challenging activities, positive life events, andhigh-quality interactions with signiﬁcant others contribute to the development of life satisfaction” in children (p. 25, Park, 2004). Children’s travel could relate to these through granting autonomy of travel(e.g. Mitra, 2013). It might also relate to negative and positive life
events such as car crashes (Bryant et al., 2004; Ellis et al., 1998), andthe opportunity to talk with friends or siblings where a parent is notobserving (Kirby and Inchley, 2013; Murray and Mand, 2013; Romero,
2010; Zwerts et al., 2010). As well, correlations exist between life satisfaction with physical health and with positive physical behaviors(e.g. exercise, eating well) (Park, 2004). Therefore, active travel such as
walking and cycling may contribute to life satisfaction.
2.2. Children’s travel satisfaction and life satisfaction
Children’s travel satisfaction has not received much attention.
Directly measuring children’s travel satisfaction, a Swedish study(Westman et al., 2017) found that travel by car and trips with longer
durations were negatively associated to satisfaction of the schoolcommute. Further, they found that solitary activities during travel was
associated with being stressed and that trip satisfaction was related toexperienced positive and negative emotions of a speciﬁc trip. A review
on children’s transport and well-being (Waygood et al., 2017) summarized current research that is relevant to children’s travel215

Travel Behaviour and Society 16 (2019) 214–223

E.O.D. Waygood et al.

Fig. 1. Conceptual model: proposed direct eﬀects are shown by solid lines, indirect eﬀects by broken lines, and both direct and indirect by the broken and dottedlines.

3. Methodtravel, socio-demographics, travel attributes, and social interactions
will inﬂuence this value. Presumably, a child that has autonomy of theirtravel is less restricted in terms of making trips to meet their needs anddesires (i.e. going out for play, social interaction). As diﬀerences havebeen observed for travel behavior between the genders and ages (fortravel), we include socio-demographic inﬂuences (note: in this study,
age was not included as a measure because there was little variation).
This can also relate to the levels of independence that are granted.
Diﬀerent modes of travel have diﬀerent attributes and associations (i.e.
cars are comfortable/constraining, walking is peaceful/boring, cycling
is fun/stressful, the bus is easy/restrictive), thus the frequency of theiruse could impact travel satisfaction. Finally, social interaction during
travel and the ability to seek-out friends are seen as desirable attributes
by children related to travel.
Conceptual models exist for children’s travel, but these typicallyfocus on explaining what travel mode was used (e.g. McMillan, 2005;
Sirard and Slater, 2008; Mitra, 2013). McMillan (2005) presented aconceptual model for children’s trip to school which aimed to explain
parental decisions. That model included built and social environment
inﬂuences along with household characteristics. Sirard and Slater(2008) suggested a “Ecological and Cognitive Active Commuting(ECAC) Framework”. In this conceptual model, the authors included
policy along with the physical and social environments. The inﬂuenceof children and household resources are included along with perceptions, all of which inﬂuence or interact with psychosocial mediators.
Mitra (2013) proposed a behavioral model of school transportation.
This model is a socio-ecological framework and is larger in scope than
the two previous models. Along with policy, it adds the natural environment as an external inﬂuence. The framework organizes the different inﬂuences by levels: Urban environment (physical and social),household (social-economic situation, travel patterns of household,attitudes and beliefs), and ﬁnally the individual characteristics of thechild. These models all relate to explaining why children travel by
diﬀerent modes, whereas the purpose of this research is to examineinteractions between travel patterns and travel satisfaction, and howthat relates (if at all) to life satisfaction.
We conclude that little to no research has been conducted on children’s travel satisfaction and life satisfaction. Thus, this study will examine the links (speciﬁed in Fig. 1) between independent travel, travel
attributes, social interaction, travel satisfaction, and childreńs life satisfaction. The relationships will be examined through a partial leastsquare structural equation model as a means of capturing direct andindirect relationships. Lastly, children in Canada, Japan, and Sweden
will be studied, testing the likelihood of ﬁnding anecdotal results that
may only be true to one country or culture.

For the purposes of our study, childhood is treated as a lifecycle
stage that diﬀers from adults with distinct behaviors (e.g. nearly all
children aged 10 and 11 go to school in developed countries), physicalcharacteristics (e.g. most children aged 10 and 11 are shorter than most
adults), and mental characteristics (e.g. developing brains, developing
skills related negotiating daily life).
3.1. Sample and survey
The data for this research comes from paper surveys distributed in
grade ﬁve classes (10–12 years old; the majority were 10 and 11 years
old; Table 1) at public elementary schools in Canada, Japan, andSweden in 2014–2015. The surveys were all developed from a common
English version (see Fig. 2 for an example page) and were given in therelevant local language (French in Quebec, Canada). The surveys were
distributed in October for Canada, December for Sweden, and Januaryfor Japan to limit the impact of climate. As well, the schools that participated have similar economic conditions (see below).
There are a number of reasons that the research was conducted inthese three countries speciﬁcally. The primary reason is that the studyof three distinct cultures (North American, Asian, and European) limits
ﬁndings that are anecdotal to one culture or context. As well, Sweden
and Japan have the lowest fatality rates for children by transport
overall and for the target age respectively (Waygood et al., 2015).
Japan has an extremely high rate of active travel for children going toschool (ibid). High levels of independent travel can be found in bothSweden and Japan (Shaw et al., 2015) whereas children’s travel in
Canada is increasingly motorized (e.g. Buliung et al., 2009). The choiceof cities was related to the location of the institutions of each of theparticipating authors.
In each class, all children participated. The surveys were completed
in class following a short introduction to the survey. As part of theintroduction, children were reminded that there are no wrong answers
and that the most important part is to respond honestly about how theyfeel. As well, the purpose of the study was to help improve children’s
lives, so honest answers (whether negative or positive) would allow the
researchers to help maintain or improve conditions. In the Japanese andSwedish samples, the schools had prior research relationships with theresearchers that allowed for a nearly 100% participation rate. However,for the Canadian sample, an additional permission from parents was
required for participation in this study. The participation rate in the
Canadian schools ranged from 65% to 100%. In total, 529 participant
responses (184 in Canada, 189 in Japan, 156 in Sweden) were kept for
the research project. In this analysis, 461 individuals completed all the216

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Table 1
Descriptive statistics of participants.
CanadaJapan

SwedenOverall

age

10
11
12

135
75.6%
17.6%
6.9%

182
14.4%
85.6%
0.0%

144
23.4%
51.8%
24.8%

461
37.8%
51.7%
10.6%

Gender

Boys
Girls

49.6%
46.6%

38.1%
61.3%

52.5%
47.5%

46.7%
51.8%

Adults1
2
3 or more

21.4%
69.5%
7.6%

7.7%
68.0%
24.3%

2.8%
83.0%
13.5%

10.6%
73.5%
15.1%

Walk freq.

Never
A couple of times a year
A couple of times a month
A couple of times a week
Everyday

8.4%
7.6%
10.7%
21.4%
51.9%

0.6%
0.6%
2.8%
5.5%
90.6%

14.2%
5.0%
17.0%
19.9%
44.0%

7.7%
4.4%
10.2%
15.6%
62.2%

Bicycle freq.

Never
A couple of times a year
A couple of times a month
A couple of times a week
Everyday

16.8%
19.1%
23.7%
28.2%
12.2%

25.4%
11.0%
22.7%
34.8%
6.1%

9.9%
10.6%
24.8%
27.7%
27.0%

17.4%
13.6%
23.7%
30.2%
15.1%

Public transport freq.*

Never
A couple of times a year
A couple of times a month
A couple of times a week
Everyday

57.3%
19.8%
12.2%
8.4%
2.3%

11.0%
35.9%
37.6%
14.4%
1.1%

36.9%
26.2%
19.1%
12.1%
5.7%

35.1%
27.3%
23.0%
11.6%
3.0%

Car freq.

Never
A couple of times a year
A couple of times a month
A couple of times a week
Everyday

9.2%
3.8%
6.1%
38.2%
42.7%

3.3%
1.1%
6.6%
52.5%
36.5%

2.8%
6.4%
9.2%
53.2%
28.4%

5.1%
3.8%
7.3%
47.9%
35.9%

Social interaction in public

NeverRarelySeveral times a week
Everyday

6.9%
21.4%
38.9%
25.2%

9.4%
22.1%
39.2%
29.3%

0.7%
11.3%
78.0%
6.4%

5.7%
18.3%
52.1%
20.3%

Independent mobility (IM) – distance

NowhereMy neighborhood
Nearby neighborhood (15 to 30 min. by foot)Most of the city
Index

5.3%
28.2%
32.8%
9.2%
2.38 (1.36)

8.8%
32.6%
16.0%
42.5%
2.54 (1.26)

0.7%
4.3%
44.0%
48.2%
4.29 (1.62)

5.0%
21.7%
30.9%
33.3%
2.02 (0.93)

Independent mobility (IM) by active modes – possibility

Index

3.23 (2.11)

1.43 (1.61)

4.74 (2.77)

3.01 (2.58)* Trips by regular bus (PT) and school bus were collapsed into one PT-variable due to the very low frequency of public transport and school bus use, and a large
amount of missing data for this particular mode. The highest frequency reported for any of the two modes were used as the score for PT use. Hence, if school bus = 2
and regular bus = 1 then PT = 2, if school bus = 0 and regular bus = 4 then PT = 4.

Two measures were used for independent mobility. One relates towhat modes the child is able to use independent of an adult (walk, bike,public bus, and train (for Japan only)). There were four possible scenarios for each: alone during the day; with friends during the day; alone
at night; with friends at night. An index was created by summing thenumber of scenarios for each mode and dividing by the number ofmodes possible (as the Japanese children had four modes compared tothe three for the Canadian and Swedish children). The second question
related to the range of their independent travel. This had four levels:
nowhere; my neighborhood; nearby neighborhoods; anywhere in thecity.
As can be seen in Figs. 2 and 3, the survey consisted of backgroundquestions related to age, gender, where they live, and who they live
with. They also reported access to a functional bicycle, the possession ofa bus pass, the number of cars at home, and how often they used different modes. For the Japan sample, public transport by rail was included as this is an option. In contrast, school bus travel was an option
for the Canadian and Swedish children, but not the Japanese (as such asystem does not exist for the schools studied, nor for most schools inJapan). As mentioned above, independent mobility was reported asboth the distance they are allowed to go without their parents and therequired information. Further, to limit the bias of common method
variance (e.g. how an individual uses a Likert scale), all respondents
who did not vary their Likert scale responses were eliminated.
The travel patterns in each country are diﬀerent. Although it is notpossible to explain exactly why this is the case, a brief summary isgiven. Some research suggests that there are structural and social
practices that diﬀer between children’s travel in Japan and North
American (Waygood, 2009b). In Japan, a walking school bus system
exists nationally since the early 1960’s (Waygood et al., 2015). In
roughly two-thirds of elementary schools nation-wide, all children in all
grades participate in the walking school buses. Further, parents are notallowed to drive their children to the school and non-local traﬃc istypically not allowed within 500 m of the school. In Sweden, Björklid
and Gummesson (2013) report that since the 1970s, Sweden has taken
the perspective that it is not possible to adjust children to traﬃc. As aconsequence, the traﬃc has been adjusted to make it safe for children.
However, at the same time the percentage of children (aged seven tonine) who are allowed to walk independently to school has dropped
from nearly 100% in 1985 to less than half in 2012. In Karlstad (the cityof study in Sweden), a vast network of oﬀ-road cycle lanes exist whichfacilitate safe cycling.
217

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Fig. 2. Example of how the ﬁrst page (of two) looked in the English, French, Swedish, and Japanese versions of the survey.

answered on a ﬁve-point Likert scale accompanied with mood icons at
the endpoints, ranging from 1 (very dissatisﬁed) to 5 (very satisﬁed).
Another question asked how satisﬁed they are with their life as a whole,
and was answered with a similar Likert scale.
Questions were also asked about electronic equipment, Internet andpossibility of using diﬀerent modes to travel independently. Physicaland virtual (e.g. through communication technology) social interaction
with friends were reported as a frequency measure of how often they
spend time with friends after school. One overall question of their travel
satisfaction (how satisﬁed they are with how they get around) was218

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E.O.D. Waygood et al.

Fig. 3. Full general travel survey in English.

social media use. They furthermore ﬁlled out travel diaries on two
occasions the same week related to daily activities, exercise, social interactions during travel, experiences, and mood. These questions were
not the focus of the present paper and will be reported elsewhere (e.g.
Waygood et al., 2017; Waygood, 2018).

main travel mode for adults commuting in Hadano was by private car(48.4%) and rail (26.5%) in 2010. The main means of travel for children going to school (7–18 years old) was on foot (62.6%) and rail
(21.5%). The bus-use rate was 2.8% for adults and 3.4% for children.
The bicycle-use rate was 7.6% for adults and 5.6% for children.
Household income is not as easily available, but the average income for
Hadano city was 3,206,995 yen ($US 30,000) in 2017 (Nenshuu Gaido,2017). Data is not publicly available at the level of the schools’ catchment areas. However, information on the occupation sector is available.
For the two participating areas (chiku in Japanese), the percentages ineach sector are similar, though the school on the outskirts has twice as
many people employed in the agricultural sector (though this is still
only 2.9%). The majority (70%) are employed in tertiary sectors (e.g.
service), then 28% in secondary sectors (e.g. manufacturing). The morerural of the two school areas has more people employed in construction
and transportation, with the other having more people employed inretail and unclassiﬁed sectors.

3.2. Study areas
3.2.1. Quebec, Canada
Quebec is the capital city of the province of Quebec in Canada. The
city of Quebec had a population of 516,620 in 2011 and the metropolitan area in 2014 had a population of 800,900 (Statistics Canada,2017). For the metropolitan area of Quebec, over 85% of trips to work
were by car (CMQ, 2016). In the central part of the city, this is reduced
to 27–58%, depending on the neighborhood. For children aged ninethrough eleven, the average weekday modal share was by car (45%),
school bus (25%), walking (27%), cycling (1%), and public transport(1%) (Waygood, 2018). The six participating schools are all publicschools and were chosen to represent the center, the old suburbs, andthe new suburbs. According to the 2011 national household survey, themedian household incomes of the census tract areas within the catchment areas of the schools vary from C$44,000 to C$64,000 (roughly US$37,000–US$50,000) in the center, C$39,000 to C$81,000 (US$30,000–$63,000) in the old suburbs, and C$49,000 to C$108,000 (US$38,000–$84,000) (Statistics Canada) for the new suburbs. The medianhousehold income for Quebec City in 2011 was C$79,000 ($US61,000;
Statistics Canada, 2017).

3.2.3. Karlstad, Sweden
Karlstad is a medium-sized Swedish city located in Värmland
County. Karlstad city had a population of 89,000 in 2017 and thecounty has a population of 273,000. The main travel mode in Karlstad
is the private car (used in 59% of all trips). The number of trips made bybicycle has increased by four percent (between 2004 and 2014) and is
now equal to 19%. Nine percent of all trips are done by public transport. Unfortunately, general statistics on children’s travel in Karlstad
are not available. However, previous research on children’s travel toschool in Sweden found that the majority was on foot (54%), followedby school buses (26%), and then local train (6%), cycling (4%), and car(3%) (Björklid and Gummesson, 2013). The median household incomesof the census tract areas within the catchment areas of the schools varyfrom 273,000 to 388,000 SEK ($US33,000–$46,000) in the center and
317,000 to 344,000 SEK ($US 38,000–$41,000) in the suburbs, and3.2.2. Hadano, Japan
Hadano is located in Kanagawa prefecture; this is the west side of
the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. The population in April 2016 was
167,000. Hadano city has four railway stations; it takes one hour from
central Tokyo by rail and it is located in a basin-shaped valley. The
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E.O.D. Waygood et al.

122,000 to 388,000 SEK ($US15,000–$46,000) in Karlstad municipality
as a whole. The median household income for Karlstad municipality in2016 was 268,209 SEK ($US 32,000; Statistics Sweden, 2017).

Table 3
Detailed results from PLS-SEM: Indirect eﬀects (all countries included, withtravel satisfaction and life satisfaction scales standardised).
Travel satisfaction

3.3. Participants
There were initially 461 responses with data for the study (Table 1).
However, 32 (17 Canadian, nine Japanese, and six Swedish) were removed because the children’s responses to any Likert questions (otherLikert questions are not reported here) did not vary. Then, in a few
cases, no response was given for the satisfaction questions (1 Canadian,
3 Swedish). Thus, the total cases used was 425. Descriptive statistics forthe participants is shown in Table 1.

Girl
AdultsWalk
BicyclePublic transport
Car
Social interaction
IM distance
IM possibility

4. Analysis

Life satisfaction

B

t

p

B

t

p

−0.022−0.016
0.002
0.006
0.004
0.008

1.624
1.443
0.436
1.089
0.849
1.122

0.105
0.149
0.663
0.276
0.396
0.262

−0.012−0.009−0.0300.007−0.031−0.022
0.013
0.010
0.049

0.965
0.964
2.453
0.552
2.597
1.931
1.375
1.061
3.414

0.335
0.335
0.014
0.581
0.009
0.054
0.169
0.289
0.001

Note: numbers in bold are signiﬁcant at p < .05, numbers in italics are signiﬁcant at p < .10.

The software SmartPLS 3.0 (Hair et al., 2016; Ringle et al., 2015) isused to estimate direct eﬀects, indirect eﬀects, and total eﬀects impliedby the conceptual model (Fig. 1). SmartPLS is a software developed toestimate partial least square structural equation models (PSL-SEM)(Henseler, Ringle, and Sarstedt, 2015). PLS-SEM is a robust method toanalyze small-sample data (Hair et al., 2012). It does not require nor
assume that data is normally distributed, implying that parametricsigniﬁcance tests (such as in regression analyses) cannot be applied totest whether relationships (path coeﬃcients) are signiﬁcant. Instead,
PLS-SEM relies on a nonparametric bootstrap procedure to test thesigniﬁcance of estimated path coeﬃcients. In bootstrapping, randomly
drawn observations from the original set of data are used to create
subsamples. This process is repeated until a large enough number ofrandom subsamples has been created (usually 5000). The parameter
estimates (e.g., path coeﬃcients) estimated from the subsamples arethen used to derive standard errors. With this information, t-values arecalculated to assess each estimate's signiﬁcance (Hair et al. 2016).
The standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) (Henseler
et al., 2015) were used to assess approximate model ﬁt. The calculated
value of 0.06 in the tested model was well below the cut-oﬀ value of
0.08 (Hu and Bentler, 1999) indicating an acceptable ﬁt.
To control for variation in how the diﬀerent cultures may use Likert
scales, all of the measures of satisfaction were converted to z-scores.
This is done by taking the individual’s response, subtracting the mean of
the group (e.g. Canada, Japan, or Swedish children), and then dividing
by the standard deviation of that group.

and life satisfaction are given in Table 2 (direct eﬀects) and Table 3(indirect eﬀects). Fig. 4 displays the signiﬁcant direct and indirect effects, as well as adjusted R2 for the regression models. Overall, the results ﬁnd that satisfaction with travel is associated to life satisfaction.
As well, the possibility of independent travel (here, being allowed totravel without an adult by active modes) is strongly associated to travel
satisfaction (TS), and indirectly to life satisfaction (LS). All modes, apartfrom cycling, were negatively associated with travel satisfaction andindirectly with life satisfaction.
Sociodemographic variables were found to be of marginal signiﬁcance, where more adults in a household are positively and directly
associated with life satisfaction. With respect to gender of the child, a
marginally signiﬁcant direct negative path from girls to the independent mobility distance was observed. However, these genderﬁndings should be taken with some caution since the explained variance of independent mobility was not signiﬁcant (R2 = 0.01, ns), indicating that other variables are of more relevance when explaining
independent mobility.
Children who reported having regular social interactions outside ofschool were not statistically associated with either travel or life satisfaction. Frequency of travel by bicycle and by car were positively
associated with social interaction.
Two measures were used with respect to the childrens’ independent
mobility (IM). The ﬁrst, the distance that the child is allowed to goalone, was not signiﬁcant for either travel or life satisfaction. However,the possibility for the child to undertake independent trips on foot, bybicycle or by public transport was positive and in line with the proposed
relationship. Independent mobility had a positive direct eﬀect on travel
satisfaction, and a positive indirect eﬀect on life satisfaction (throughtravel satisfaction).
For travel modes, the frequency of use of all modes (except for

5. Results
This section presents the results; the interpretation of these resultswith respect to theory and existing literature is found in the Discussionsection. The full estimation results of the PLS-SEM for travel satisfaction

Table 2
Detailed results from PLS-SEM: Direct eﬀects (all countries included, with travel satisfaction and life satisfaction scales standardised).
Social interaction
B
Girl
AdultsWalk
BicyclePublic transport
Car
Social interaction
IM distance
IM possibility
Travel satisfaction
Adj. R2

0.024
0.087
0.062
0.113

0.02

t

0.542
1.848
1.240
2.030

IM distancep

IM possibility

Travel satisfaction

Life satisfaction

B

t

p

B

t

p

B

t

p

B

t

p

−0.081
0.007

1.754
0.152

0.079
0.879

−0.070−0.066

1.532
1.620

0.126
0.105

−0.013−0.002−0.151
0.031−0.159−0.114
0.067
0.052
0.251

0.276
0.070
3.517
0.634
3.612
2.547
1.528
1.138
5.714

0.782
0.944
< 0.001
0.526< 0.001
0.011
0.126
0.255
< 0.001

0.072
0.070

1.528
1.902

0.127
0.057

−0.013−0.010
0.082
0.196
0.05

0.347
0.246
1.495
4.037

0.728
0.806
0.135
< 0.001

0.588
0.065
0.215
0.042

0.01

0.01

0.12

Note: numbers in bold are signiﬁcant at p < .05, and numbers in italics are signiﬁcant at p < .10.
220

Travel Behaviour and Society 16 (2019) 214–223

E.O.D. Waygood et al.

Fig. 4. Signiﬁcant direct eﬀects (solid line) and indirect eﬀects (broken line).

should not aﬀect satisfaction. Speculatively, it could be explained bychildrens’ perceived freedom and having control over how and when to
travel.
All travel modes, apart from bicycle, were negatively associated totravel satisfaction and indirectly to life satisfaction. Conﬁrming theseﬁndings, travel by bicycle has also been associated to greater travel
satisfaction in adults (see O’Brien, 2012). Children in Japan rated cycling as the most fun travel mode (Waygood, 2009a), followed by train,
then car, then walking (neutral), and bus (slightly negative). It was also
observed that public transport had a stronger, more negative relationship with travel satisfaction for the Swedish as compared to the Canadian and Japanese children. Why the frequency of use is negatively
associated with general travel satisfaction among Swedish children is
hard to explain and requires further study. It may be that the highest
percentage of children who reported using public transport on a daily
basis were in Sweden (Table 1). Other studies that include psychological measures have shown that children associate more positive emotions with active modes (walking and cycling combined; Ramanathan
et al., 2014). Westman et al.’s (2016) study of children’s satisfaction
with their trip to school showed that car travel was associated with alower trip quality.
As mentioned in the introduction, theoretically it is assumed thattravel enables activity participation instrumental for people to achieve
important goals in their lives, which increases life satisfaction (Ettema
et al., 2010). Here, the negative relationship of an increased frequency
of mode use (which implies more travel) to satisfaction might suggestthat children do not desire travel. Either they may prefer to stay athome or prefer the “teleporting” option (e.g. Mokhtarian and Salomon,
2001; Russell and Mokhtarian, 2015). In previous studies, a teleporting
option is not generally found to be preferred by the majority of theadult population; many individuals instead ﬁnd utility in their travelsuch as exercise or as a mental break between locations. In other studiesof adults, individuals using public transport are found to do other activities such as reading, texting, or doing work (Jain and Lyons, 2008;
Clayton et al., 2017). This relationship warrants further investigation
for children’s travel to directly address children’s views of number oftrips by diﬀerent modes, and the subjective value of travel.
In the present study, a school bus was considered as public transport, though obvious diﬀerences exist between public transport that isshared by the public at large and mass transport that is a school bus (asnot anyone can ride). As the public at large does not use school buses,
the children are in a near child-only place where the sole supervisor inmany cases is the driver who must concentrate on their job. A child may

bicycle) was directly and negatively associated with travel satisfaction.
Those diﬀerent travel modes were also indirectly and negatively associated with life satisfaction.
As the contexts vary considerably (culture, physical environment,social environment), the relationships were tested for each pair ofcountries possible (i.e. Canada-Japan, Canada-Sweden, Japan-Sweden).
Thus, pairwise PLS multi-group analyses (MGA) were performed. In
PLS-MGA the diﬀerence between each path coeﬃcient in the structuralmodel is tested statistically between diﬀerent groups (in our case thethree diﬀerent countries) using an additional bootstrap procedure withanother 5000 replicates. The results revealed that there was no signiﬁcant diﬀerence in the path coeﬃcients between the Canadian andJapanese children. This means that the relationships between thevariables did not vary signiﬁcantly between those countries. Swedish
children showed almost identical results with the Canadian andJapanese children. The only diﬀerence was that public transport frequency was more strongly and negatively associated with travel satisfaction for Swedish children (path diﬀ = 0.35, p < .01, for Swedishvs Canadian children; path diﬀ = 0.34, p < .01, for Swedish vsJapanese children).
6. Discussion
Children’s life satisfaction is related to satisfaction in diﬀerent domains of their life. Previously, a relationship between domains such as
self, family/home, friends, and school had been demonstrated. Here, we
ﬁnd a signiﬁcant path between travel satisfaction and life satisfaction,with no signiﬁcant diﬀerences between Canadian, Japanese, andSwedish children. This indicates that regardless of context, travel satisfaction seems to be important for life satisfaction. It should be notedthat while being signiﬁcant, it explains a moderate part of children’s life
satisfaction, a ﬁnding corroborating results among satisfaction of workcommutes and life satisfaction for adults (Olsson et al., 2013). Althoughmoderate, it should nevertheless not be neglected as it is an activity thatmost children do every day and is thus an important part of their daily
life. We furthermore ﬁnd that the number of possibilities to travel independently are positively, though indirectly, associated with life satisfaction. That is, the more possibility a child is given to travel independently, the more satisﬁed they are with their travel, and thegreater their life satisfaction. However, the distance they are allowed totravel independently was not found to have a signiﬁcant relationship.
Thus, our results would suggest that autonomy through choice improves life satisfaction, but setting limits to the distances allowed221

Travel Behaviour and Society 16 (2019) 214–223

E.O.D. Waygood et al.

life satisfaction studies of children (i.e. Huebner and Diener, 2008),
transport options will (generally) increase with age. Children of eight
years of age will likely be restricted to local independent travel (though
exceptions exist), whereas there is often a marked increase in public
transport use when children attend middle or high school. In each age
group, their interests may diﬀer as well. A child of eight may be content
with local travel, where a teenager may seek greater autonomy andexplore more of their city. These questions are of interest in futurestudies of travel satisfaction.
There exists the potential of reverse causality. A child may reportbeing satisﬁed with their travel because they are satisﬁed with their life
as a whole and thus are stimulated to engage in society. On the other
hand, a child who is dissatisﬁed with their life may wish to engage morewith friends, but they may not be able to meet that desire if theirtransportation is limited. Thus their life satisfaction and travel satisfaction remain low. Presumably, a child who can freely engage with
their interests outside of the home will be more satisﬁed with life.
Among adults, it has been found that the path from out-of-home activities and travel satisfaction to life satisfaction is stronger than in thereverse direction (De Vos, 2017).
As with most surveys, the problem of socially desirable responses
exists. Huebner and Diener (2008) reports that measures of life satisfaction for children are “weakly associated to social desirability responding.” Thus, this likely biases the response towards the positiveend, possibly reducing the variability for the statistical analysis.
In this paper, measures related to the built environment were notdirectly examined. This is not necessarily a problem as the study locations of Canada, Japan, and Sweden have diﬀerent built environments. Thus, those diﬀerent built environments will be captured in the
country variable. Future studies could aim to separate the potential
inﬂuence of the built environment by studies within cultures acrossvarying built and social environments.

not be able to avoid tormentors/bullies by adjusting the time that they
go to school (as is the case with public buses) or changing routes (as is
the case with walking or cycling). The diﬀerence between the current
study and Westman et al. (2017) may be that taking school buses does
not have negative social connotations and children may be riding withfriends, but this is distorted by combining the two modes of masstransit. Such problems also exist when active travel is combined, as
cycling is often viewed favorably and walking is not (e.g. Waygood,
2009a). For both public and school buses, the children must adhere to aschedule outside of their control which may decrease satisfaction. Although arriving at school on time is a ﬁxed schedule outside of theircontrol as well, the schedule of the bus is an additional constraint which
could cause stress.
Diﬀerent measures related to travel may be important for explaining
travel satisfaction that were not captured in this study. For instance,
Westman et al. (2017) examined trip satisfaction and found that trip
duration is important, as trips over 15 min were associated with lower
assessment of a trip’s quality and trip excitement. Conversely, social
activity during travel was associated with a positive impact on the trip’s
quality and the trip’s assessed excitement. Neither of those measures
were captured in the global measures used for this study. Thus, suchquestions might be valuable to add in future studies to help explain
overall travel satisfaction. More versatile measures of factors explaining
travel satisfaction would also give a more nuanced picture of the path
between children’s travel satisfaction and life satisfaction. A key contribution of this study is the measurement of general travel satisfaction.
Previous work such as Westman et al. (2017) found that bus, walking,and cycling were all of higher quality than travel by car for trips toschool. Ramanathan et al. (2014) found more positive emotions associated with active modes as opposed to passive (motorized) modes fortrips to school, though travel satisfaction was not directly measured. In
this study, all modes apart from cycling were negatively related totravel satisfaction. Thus, cycling does seem to be an enjoyable mode forchildren reﬂecting what is found for adults (Friman et al., 2013), but
enjoyment may be less clear for walking. However, one distinction here
from previous studies is that the frequency of mode-use was used. This
is in contrast to studies using the actual mode used for a speciﬁc day
and trip (Westman et al., 2017), or the main mode for a speciﬁc trip
(Ramanathan et al., 2014). Another diﬀerence is that the study wasinternational, including Swedish children (like Westman et al., 2017),
Canadian children (like Ramanathan et al., 2014), and Japanese children. The Japanese children in this study attended public schools wherepractically all children walk to school in walking school buses. According to other research, this is a typical situation in Japan (seeWaygood et al., 2015). In such a situation, the frequency of walking
would be high for all the children.

7. Conclusions
In this ﬁrst investigation on the relationship between travel satisfaction and life satisfaction for children, a number of signiﬁcant results were obtained. In line with research on adults, a positive relationship was found between travel and life satisfaction. As children’s
travel is more restricted than adults, independent travel was tested andfound to have a direct and positive relationship with travel satisfaction
and an indirect one with life satisfaction. All modes apart from bicycle
had a direct and negative association with travel satisfaction, and an
indirect one with life satisfaction. The results suggest that travel satisfaction can aﬀect life satisfaction and that this result is consistentacross three distinct cultures. However, as outlined in the discussion,much remains to be learned of these relationships.

6.1. Limitations and future research
Acknowledgements
Future research on children’s life satisfaction and travel should also
consider social relationships and the types of activities (at the destinations) carried out by children, as these are strong explanatory factorsof life satisfaction in youth (Park, 2004). For social relationships, itappears that “close, enjoyable and responsive, and deep interactions”
are more important than the total number of interactions (ibid). For
activities, structured activities and activities with friends are associatedwith greater life satisfaction (ibid). In this study, the question on social
interactions outside of school may not have been precise enough. For
travel, it may be important to know whether the child travels alone,with parents, with friends, or in other contexts. Even for travel alone,
the child may enjoy the chance for self-reﬂection (Romero, 2010), or it
may be traveling alone in a public context (e.g. on public transport)
where they may do any number of activities (e.g. playing video games,
texting, or watching the world). Thus, the question of social interaction
is likely more complex than was captured here.
Although age and gender are not found to be important in general

Financial support for this research was obtained through Grant(#2014-05335) from the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation
Systems (VINNOVA). Language editing by Michi Waygood of Crayonbleu.com.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
online version, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2018.04.004.
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