Journal of Transport Geography 63 (2017) 22–29

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Transport Geography
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeoChildren's incidental social interaction during travel international casestudies from Canada, Japan, and Sweden☆

MARK

E.O.D. Waygooda,⁎, Margareta Frimanb, Lars E. Olssonc, Ayako TaniguchidaÉcole supérieure d'aménagement du terroire et de développement régional (ÉSAD), FAS-1622, Université Laval, Québec, Canada
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 L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
Children's travel
Incidental social interactions
Independent mobility
Active travel

Incidental social interactions such as seeing a known person while travelling are theorized to contribute tocommunity connections and social capital. It is argued in such work that walking may be a critical factor, but thefrequency of such interactions is generally unknown. For children, these community connections may increase
independent travel and contribute to their well-being. Previous research out of Japan found that walking was
indeed more likely to result in children seeing people in general and seeing a known person. However, it is notclear whether that is a culturally anecdotal ﬁnding, or whether similar ﬁndings would occur in diﬀerent culturaland transportation contexts. Reasons why it may be anecdotal include: in most cases, all elementary school
children walk to school in Japan; many trips occur at a local level and are conducted by non-motorized modes inJapan; greeting others (aisatsu) is a cultural value in Japan. This study examines whether one's transport mode
relates to having incidental social interaction during their trips for children aged 10–11 in Canada (177), Japan(178), and Sweden (144). Further to previous work, the research carried out here asked the children what type ofinteraction occurred (spoke, waved, no interaction, or other) which would relate to building or maintaining
community connections. The ﬁndings demonstrate that the results are internationally applicable and that mostincidental social interactions result in a verbal communication in all three countries.

1. Introduction
Previous research has found relationships between children's travel
and incidental community connections (Waygood and Friman, 2015;
Waygood and Kitamura, 2009). That research showed that children
who walk and who travel independently were more likely to see others
during travel, and, in particular, to see others that they knew. However,the survey was conducted in Japan where a cultural value is placed onsaying hello to others (aisatsu). As well, as highlighted recently in areview of literature on transport and child well-being (Waygood et al.,2017) anecdotal results (i.e. results from one country/city) need to betested in diverse contexts to test whether the results are consistent or
not. Thus, the question remains whether the ﬁndings are robust; would
they be found in other cultures or locations? Further, related to building
or maintaining community connections, when the children noticeothers, what type of interaction occurs (e.g. simply notice the other,wave, speak, or some other interaction)?

☆

Social connections are important for building and maintaining social capital and community cohesion, but also in general, social relationships. Mental health measures such as social relationships were
found to have a higher impact on mortality than alcohol consumption,
physical activity, body-mass index (obesity), and air quality; and theimpacts are not age-dependent (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2010). As well,
Helliwell and Putnam (2004) found that neighbourhood and community ties support both physical and subjective well-being. Important tothe current research, Helliwell and Putnam also cite work showing a
positive relationship between social networks and improved childwelfare. Thus, social relationships are important for health, but moststudies on the relationships between children's travel and their healthand well-being have focused on physical aspects such as active travel(e.g. Bates and Stone, 2015; Schoeppe et al., 2013) or collisions (e.g.
Rothman et al., 2014; Toroyan and Peden, 2007). Further to links withmortality, social relationships are also a strong explanatory factor of
subjective well-being, which is a person's evaluation of their overall

Geolocation information: Quebec, Canada; Karlstad, Sweden; Hadano, Japan.
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: owen.waygood@esad.ulaval.ca (E.O.D. Waygood), margareta.friman@kau.se, @FrimanSAMOT (M. Friman), lars.e.olsson@kau.se, @Lyckolars (L.E. Olsson),taniguchi@risk.tsukuba.ac.jp (A. Taniguchi).
⁎

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2017.07.002
Received 3 March 2017; Received in revised form 31 May 2017; Accepted 6 July 2017
Available online 17 July 2017
0966-6923/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Journal of Transport Geography 63 (2017) 22–29

E.O.D. Waygood et al.

performing some activity in their community. Such face-to-face interaction, as opposed to on-line interaction, has been found to be the mostimportant factor in establishing and sustaining social interactions(Urry, 2002). Positive social interactions and opportunities for identity
development were found to enhance connection to the children's environment (Depeau, 2001). Relationships with members of a child's
community play a role in building social networks known to aﬀect
children's well-being and a sense of belonging (Compas et al., 1986).
Social interaction and a sense of belonging are also important
contributions to subjective well-being and quality of life (Diener andBiswas-Diener, 2011; Helliwell and Putnam, 2004; Sirgy, 2012) which
also applies to adolescents and young children (Park, 2004; Pretty et al.,1996). For adults, having frequent interactions with friends and trusting
one's neighbours and community are related to life satisfaction andhappiness (two key elements of subjective well-being) as well as physical health (Helliwell and Putnam, 2004). Well-being and social relationships are associated and the absence of loneliness makes children
healthier. Having friendly neighbours is negatively related to feelings ofloneliness or experiencing sadness in adults (Helliwell and Putnam,2004). Although this last relationship has not been demonstrated forchildren, it would seem intuitive that similar results would be found forthem.
For well-being in life it is important for children to be in contact
with and interact with other known people, to have parents that protect
them and treat them well and to have a personal, safe place to be(Fattore et al., 2007; Pollard and Lee, 2003). The interactions can be‘bonding’ where the child would make connections with other children,or ‘bridging’ where the child would make links with those dissimilar tothemselves (e.g. adults, children of diﬀerent ages or contexts). Feelingand being safe is an important part of children's subjective well-being(focuses on how children are feeling, often operationalized as degree ofvalence and activation). For children's well-being, Westman et al.
(2013) found that children who travelled to school by car experienced
signiﬁcantly less activation (i.e. to a higher extent they felt tired,sleepy, and dull) than those who biked to school. A lack of social interactions with others apart from their family could be part of the explanation of why children experience a lower degree of well-being
when they go by car.
Community connections can inﬂuence the sense of safety for thechild and their parent(s). One reason is that known people may makethe children feel secure and, if needed, provide help. Depeau (2001)
found that for youth, ‘the possibility of casual social interaction withpeople they knew, whether an adult or a peer, was certainly an attributethat allowed children to feel conﬁdent about being in a place, especially
if they were alone’ (pg. 85). Parents may gain a sense of safety throughwhat is termed ‘high visibility’ (Bonner, 1997). High visibility is used todescribe how someone is always around observing behaviour, and any
bad behaviour by children would eventually make it back to parents.
The parents of Bonner's study (Bonner, 1997) felt that if their children
were always near someone they knew, their behaviour would be more
restrained (they would not do bad things without someone who knew
them ﬁnding out), and a known person could help if the need arose. In
children's travel literature that concept was described by McDonald(2005) who commented that common sense suggests that parents'
willingness to allow children to travel independently depends on theirtrust of their neighbours to act on behalf of their children, both toprotect their safety and control their bad behaviour. This echoes
Hillman et al. (1990) who proposed that the higher independent travelby West German children (to British children) could potentially be
explained by cultural diﬀerences.2 Those thoughts are supported byPrezza et al. (2001) found that Italian mothers with a high amount ofneighbourhood relations were more likely to grant their childwell-being. This is again true for both adults and children (Diener andBiswas-Diener, 2011; Park, 2004).
Children's transportation and health and well-being research has
focused primarily on active travel, while little has examined howtransportation might inﬂuence social interactions. There are numerous
types of social interaction including planned, spontaneous, virtual, or
face-to-face. They can happen at a destination, but they can also happen
during a trip. Sociologists (e.g. Grannis, 2011) suggest that walking in aneighbourhood can contribute to social capital as individuals will incidentally see others, and then gradually develop these incidental interactions into conversations and deeper social relationships. In transportation literature, Carver et al. (2005), using a questionnaire on
general travel behaviour and general perceptions of neighbourhood,found that children who reported walking for transport were statistically more likely to have responded that they waved or talked with
their neighbours.
Incidental community connections can help build social capital.
Grannis (2011) explains four steps starting from two individuals that do
not know each other but have geographic proximity. The possibility ofwalking to local destinations creates the chance that those individuals
would see each other. If this is frequent enough, familiarity would increase, and some social interaction could develop (e.g. nodding hello,smiling, small talk, etc.). Eventually, this may lead to intentional social
interaction (e.g. visiting the neighbour's home). Through this process,
Grannis argues how a walkable, mixed-use environment might supportsocial capital in a community. Related to this, a study that comparedhighly walkable neighbourhoods to ones with low walkability foundthat children depicted in drawings of their neighbourhoods more active
travel and peer interaction in the highly walkable neighbourhoods(Holt et al., 2008). Waygood and Friman (2015) also found that themost urbanized areas had the most incidental community connections.
Walking and independent travel were associated with a greater
likelihood of seeing others and seeing people that the children knew
while travelling (Waygood and Friman, 2015). However, the sample
was from one region of Japan and it may have been an anecdotalﬁnding. Thus, would the result hold for a diﬀerent area of Japan that isless urban? Further, as Japan values and encourages greeting others, aswell as having a population that walks at high rates (e.g. Susilo andWaygood, 2012; Waygood and Kitamura, 2009; Waygood et al., 2015a)
it may be an anecdotal ﬁnding for that country. As well, few trips by thechildren in Waygood and Friman (2015) were by car, which may not
reﬂect the reality of some Western countries. Thus, would the results
hold in a country where the majority of travel by children is now bycar?
The scientiﬁc objectives of this research are to determine whether a)
are the results robust (e.g. can they be replicated)? b) Would the relationship hold for countries where much more of children's travel is bycar?
2. Background2.1. Community connections
For children, the beneﬁts of better community connections include
improved social skills, social interaction, well-being and safety.
Interactions with adults, particularly adults who are not the child's
parent(s) were associated with improved social skills for the child(Azuma et al., 1992). Such adults could be described as alloparents,1
who can provide other important beneﬁts such as safety and support(see below).
Social interactions help children to feel a sense of community(Pretty et al., 1996). If a child has strong community connections, thenthey may be more likely to have social interaction while travelling or
1

2
In Germany it is socially acceptable for adults to verbally discipline unknown children
in public, whereas this is not the case for modern English-culture.

Alloparents are deﬁned as adults who help raise a child, despite not being a parent.

23

Journal of Transport Geography 63 (2017) 22–29

E.O.D. Waygood et al.

or car (33% of all trips). A main destination is school and these trips aremostly made by foot or bicycle. Swedish national statistics from 1995 to2014 showed that children (6–14 years) cycled distances 42% shorter
now as compared to distances in the mid-1990s. Adolescents and young
adults (15–24 years) cycled distances 46% shorter during the same time
period (Swedish national statistics, 2015a). Cars are the main mode forleisure activities (a ﬁfth of the total number of trips made). Almost no 6year-olds walked or cycled on their own to school, but four out of ﬁve
11-year-olds did. Ninety-ﬁve percent of children aged 6–15 have accessto a bicycle regardless of age, gender and place of residence. Schmidt
and Neergaard (2007) found that 29% of all trips were made alone,
43% were accompanied by parents/adults, and 28% were accompanied
by siblings or friends.
General national travel patterns for people in Sweden aged 6–84 areavailable for trips performed outside the home. Statistics Sweden forthe year 2011–2014 showed that almost 50% of the trips were work
trips, school trips and business travel (Swedish National statistics,
2015b). About 30% were trips for leisure purposes, which includes
visiting friends, participating in community programs, visiting culturalactivities, and doing a recreational activity. Approximately 14% of thetrips were made to reach a service (e.g., doctor's visit) or for shopping
purposes. On average, 80% of the population moved outside theirhome, and 60% of those trips were conducted by car. Men travelled ingeneral more frequently by car whereas women used to a greater extent
active modes (walking and cycling).

autonomy. In a later study, McDonald et al. (2010) found that a variable for parents who reported a high level of social control was associated with a higher rate of walking or biking to school.
2.2. Travel behaviour context on community connections
Travel is not often directly studied in research on community networks
or social capital (Stanley and Stanley, 2014). Grannis (2011) found thatmost neighbour connections were established when parents were walking
with their children to local destinations such as school or the school bus
stop. He also found that for people without children, walking dogs explained nearly half of the neighbour connections that people had. However, he discusses as well that it is diﬃcult to measure such interactions.
One thing emerges from his research though: people walking locally start
to develop community connections. Thus, the general travel behaviour
context of the three study areas of this research is needed.
It is perhaps easier to notice people if they are walking regardless ofwhether one is in a car, on a bus, or walking themselves. As such, ageneral sense of how many people might be walking gives some context
of this likelihood. Often statistics on travel are focused on adults, but
the study here was not limited to only seeing a known adult, so statistics
on both children's and adults' travel is given below for each country.
2.2.1. Canada
Based on data from 1996 to 2001, Pabayo et al. (2011) found that
active travel to elementary schools in Canada peaked at the age of 10 atunder 35%. A study of children based on data from a 2006 cross-sectional survey in the Toronto region (Canada's largest city) reported thatfor children aged 11–12 (n = 2520), 58% came by active modes and
42% by passive modes (Mitra and Buliung, 2012). Larsen et al. (2009)
found that for the city of London (a medium-sized city for Canada),
Ontario 62% of children aged 11 to 13 used active modes to school, and
72% from school to home. Although Pabayo et al. (2011) did ﬁnd thatliving in an urban area increased the likelihood of active travel 3.7
times, the results of the studies cited here are somewhat at odds in thatthe majority of the population live in urban areas.
National travel patterns for adults are available for trips to work,
though this is not necessarily the majority of trips for the entire population (e.g. Miller and Shalaby, 2003). Statistics Canada for the year
2011 found that under half the population commute to work, and that
80% of those trips are by car (74% single occupancy, 5.6% as passengers).3 The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has had a relatively stable
modal share from 1964 to 1996 where personal cars trips represent justunder 80%. For the morning peak, the city of Toronto (as opposed to
the GTA) had a modal share of 38.9% for car and passenger, OttawaGatineau 55%, Calgary, 60.9%, and Vancouver 54.6% (Kim, 2008).
Thus, for the population in urban centres, the rates of car use are lower.
However, overall, the majority of trips in Canada were by car.

2.2.3. Japan
In general in Japan, car use rates are increasing and walking rates
are decreasing (Xu et al., 2015). Figs. 1 and 2 show Japanese car andwalk trip modal share transition by age (based on Xu et al., 2015).
Elementary aged children had the highest walking rates at > 70% in
2010. This is because the majority of children in elementary school inJapan walk to school in walking school buses (Waygood et al., 2015b).
Although the walking school buses are not often used for the return trip,
most children also walk home (e.g. Waygood and Kitamura, 2009).
For areas where the previous study was conducted (Waygood andFriman, 2015), the majority of the population live in urban areas where
the majority of travel is not by private motorized vehicles (Waygood
et al., 2015a). Activities such as shopping during the week are still
carried out on non-motorized modes to local destinations (e.g. Kitamura
et al., 2008). Thus, as many people are walking or cycling, there should
be a greater likelihood of seeing others.
2.2.4. Summary of transport diﬀerences
Thus, it can be seen that Japan likely has the highest percentage of
people walking or cycling, followed by Sweden, then Canada. As aperson who is walking is likely travelling slower, they would be visible
for longer periods, thus potentially increasing the likelihood that theywould be seen.

2.2.2. SwedenChildren's everyday mobility has decreased in Sweden. Suggested
explanations are growing traﬃc volumes, higher speeds and more aggressive driving, increased distances to schools, services and leisureactivities, as well as a growing concern among parents for the aspects ofsafety and security (Faskunger, 2008). The likelihood that children
would go on their own to various destinations in Sweden has decreased
from 1981 to 2003. As an example of this development, Faskunger(2008) showed how in the 1980s almost all Swedish children were allowed to go on their own to school while the ﬁgure had dropped tounder 70% in 2003.
Children aged 6–15 years in Sweden make on average 3.1 trips perday (Schmidt and Neergaard, 2007) mostly by bicycle (34% of all trips)

2.3. Anticipated inﬂuences
Each mode is anticipated to have diﬀerent inﬂuences (Waygood andFriman, 2015). Walking is anticipated to have the strongest relationshipon seeing a known person based on previous ﬁndings (Waygood andFriman, 2015). Cycling is likely also a means of transport at a local
level, but may require greater attention due to traﬃc danger and thus
seeing known people might be reduced, following previous work (ibid).
A child in a car could very easily occupy themselves with gazing out thewindow, but the speed of the car and its sense of enclosure may reduce
the likelihood of seeing people while travelling (again, following previous work (ibid)). Linking to Grannis (2011), it was argued thatwalking is most probable to result in interactions, as it is likely at a local
level and is slow enough to allow for some interaction. The only hypothesis put forward is that the children will make some interaction
when they see a known person.

3
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-012-x/99-012-x2011003_1eng.cfm

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E.O.D. Waygood et al.

Table 1
Characteristics of participants and modal share for all trips and trips to school.

Age
Female
HH carHave a bicycle
All trips
Walk
Bike
School bus
Public transport
Car
Other
Trip to school
Walk
Bike
School bus
Public transport
Car
Other

Fig. 1. Transition of car use rate in Japan.

Canada (177)Japan (178)

Sweden (144)

10.38 ± 0.06
44.1%
1.44 ± 0.06
93%

10.87 ± 0.03
61.8%
1.81 ± 0.07
87%

11.01 ± 0.06
47.2%
2.01 ± 0.08
95%

50%
4%
9%
3%
32%
2%

69%
5%
0%
2%
24%
0%

38%
16%
3%
4%
35%
4%

47%
3%
13%
5%
30%
2%

96%
0%
0%
0%
4%
0%

49%
22%
5%
3%
18%
4%

County. Karlstad city had a population of 87,000 in 2015. The main
travel mode in Karlstad is the private car (used in 59% of all trips). The
number of trips made by bicycle (mainly to work and school) has increased by 4% (between 2004 and 2014) and is now equal to 19%. Nine
percent of all trips are done by public transport.
Fig. 2. Transition of walk rate in Japan.

3.2. Participants
3. Study description
The characteristics of the participants and modal shares by country
are given in Table 1. The higher percentage of girls in Japan was
conﬁrmed; it is simply a demographic anomaly.

The data for this research come from paper surveys distributed atelementary schools in Canada, Japan, and Sweden in 2014–2015. The
surveys were all developed from a common English version and distributed in the relevant local language (French in Quebec, Canada). The
surveys were distributed in October for Canada, December for Sweden,
and January in Japan to limit the impact of climate. In total, 529
participant responses (184 in Canada, 189 in Japan, 156 in Sweden)
were kept for this research.

4. Analysis
The primary dependent variable for all of the analysis is seeing aknown person during a trip (i.e. between the origin and destination; notat the destination). The secondary research question relates to what
type of interaction occurred.

3.1. Study areas

4.1. All weekday trips

3.1.1. Quebec, Canada
Quebec is the capital city of the province of Quebec in Canada. The
City of Quebec had a population of 516,6204 in 2011 and the metropolitan area in 2014 had a population of 800,900.5 For the metropolitan area of Quebec City, over 85% of trips to work were by car.6
In the central part of the city, this is reduced to 27 to 58%6, dependingon the neighbourhood.

Here, all weekday trips recorded by the survey that begin or end at
the child's home are included. Over a day, if all trips are considered,
53% of the Canadian children saw a known person on at least one of
their trips, 91% of the Japanese children, and 41% of the Swedish
children.
It can be seen in Table 2 that walking is much more likely (12 ×) toresult in a known person being seen than trips by car. This conﬁrms the
anticipated relationships discussed above (Section 2.3). Interaction effects of gender with country and mode were tested, but were not foundbe signiﬁcant and thus are not included in the ﬁnal model. Trips toschool were 2.4 times more likely to result in a known person being
seen.
The average rates of seeing a known person by mode and country
are shown in Table 3. As can be seen in Table 2, it is statistically morecommon for the children in Japan to see a known person on walking
trips than for the participating children in Canada (4.1×) and Sweden(5.9 ×). This may be tied to the value placed on acknowledging others(aisatsu), or simply that there are more people walking or cycling to be
seen. No statistical diﬀerences were found for cycling or car trips.

3.1.2. 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 1 h from central
Tokyo by rail and it is located in a basin-shaped valley. The main travel
mode for adults commuting in Hadano was by private car (48.4%) andrail (26.5%) in 2010. The main travel mode of children's travel toschool (7–18 years old) was by foot (62.6%) and rail (21.5%). Bus use
rate was 2.8% for adults and 3.4% for children. Bicycle use rate was
7.6% for adults and 5.6% for children.
3.1.3. Karlstad, Sweden
Karlstad is a medium-sized Swedish city located in Värmland

4.2. Role of independent trips
In previous research (Waygood and Friman, 2015) independent
trips were positively associated with seeing a known person. An independent trip is deﬁned here as any trip where an adult is not present.

4

https://www.ville.quebec.qc.ca/apropos/portrait/quelques_chiﬀres/
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo05a-eng.htm
6
http://atlasstat.cmquebec.qc.ca/atlasrecenspub/carto.php
525

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E.O.D. Waygood et al.

Table 2Binary logistic analysis of a known person being seen for all weekday trips beginning or
ending at the child's home.

Trip to schoolBoy
Car (ref.)
Walk
Bike
Japan (ref.)CanadaSwedenWalk*Japan (ref.)Walk*Canada
Walk*Sweden
Bike*Japan (ref.)Bike*Canada
Bike*Sweden
Constant

Odds ratio

Std. err.

z

P > z

95%
Conf.

Interval

2.43
0.82
1.00
11.97
1.11
1.00
0.94
0.69
1.00
0.24
0.17
1.00
2.62
1.81
0.18

0.37
0.12

5.79
− 1.33

0.00
0.19

1.80
0.62

3.28
1.10

3.74
0.77

7.93
0.15

0.00
0.88

6.48
0.29

22.10
4.29

0.35
0.28

− 0.18− 0.90

0.86
0.37

0.45
0.31

1.94
1.54

0.10
0.08

− 3.42− 3.77

0.00
0.00

0.11
0.07

0.55
0.43

2.33
1.46
0.05

1.08
0.73
− 6.14

0.28
0.46
0.00

0.46
0.37
0.10

15.00
8.84
0.31

Table 6
Of all weekday trips, the percentage where a known person was seen and the type ofinteraction that occurred.

Table 3The percentage of trips where a known person was seen by mode and country.

Walk
Bike
Car

Japan

Sweden

36.1%
36.1%
16.7%

68.8%
24.3%
17.2%

24.0%
29.9%
17.4%

Table 4
Binary logistic regression on seeing a known person for active travel trips for weekday
trips beginning or ending at the child's home.

Trip to schoolBoy
No adult
Bicycle (ref.)Walk
Japan (ref.)CanadaSwedenWalk*Japan (ref.)Walk*Canada
Walk*Sweden
Boy*Japan (ref.)
Boy*Canada
Boy*Sweden
Independent*Japan
Independent*Canada
Independent*Sweden
Constant

Odds ratio

Std. err.

z

P > z

95%
Conf.

Interval

1.96
0.53
4.56
1.00
9.97
1.00
4.92
4.22
1.00
0.11
0.10
1.00
2.45
1.20

0.33
0.14
3.41

3.97
− 2.38
2.03

0.00
0.02
0.04

1.41
0.31
1.05

2.74
0.89
19.74

6.49

3.54

0.00

2.79

35.68

6.03
5.22

1.30
1.16

0.19
0.25

0.44
0.37

54.40
47.68

0.10
0.08

− 2.44− 3.07

0.02
0.00

0.02
0.02

0.65
0.44

0.95
0.51

2.30
0.43

0.02
0.67

1.14
0.52

5.24
2.76

1.00
0.28
0.06

0.25
0.28
0.06

− 1.43− 1.27− 2.87

0.15
0.21
0.00

0.06
0.04
0.01

1.57
2.02
0.41

Walk
Bike
Girl
Boy
Not independent
Independent

Sweden

40.7%
37.5%
37.7%
43.6%
33.9%
40.8%

70.2%
21.6%
69.4%
57.2%
34.9%
66.5%

26.9%
26.5%
30.6%
22.0%
22.9%
27.1%

SwedenOf all weekday trips, % where a known person wasseen
Of all weekday trips, social interaction occurred- Spoke- Waved- Other interaction- No interaction

32.2%

53.6%

23.5%

25.1%
54.5%
20.1%
3.2%
22.1%

36.9%
58.2%
9.5%
1.0%
31.3%

19.7%
65.2%
18.8%
0.0%
16.1%

The question here is: If a child sees a known person, did they havesome kind of social interaction with them? Over all trips in a day, 44%of children in Canada had some incidental social interaction during
their travels, 71% of Japanese children, and 36% of Swedish.
From Table 6, it can be seen that for the majority of trips in Japan,
the children see someone that they know. In Canada, during roughly
one third of trips a child will see someone they know, and in Sweden
less than one quarter.
If the children do see someone they know, the majority of themspoke to that person. The Swedish children were the most likely to have
had some interaction (spoke or waved) if they saw someone, followedby the Canadian children, and ﬁnally the Japanese.
Overall, when occurrences and interactions are both taken into account, over one-third of trips by Japanese children resulted in someinteraction, a quarter of Canadian children's trips, and one-ﬁfth of theSwedish children's trips.
Those results are descriptive, so a multinomial logit analysis was
conducted on the type of interaction for all weekday trips that begin or
end at the child's residence (Table 7). The base case is not seeing
anyone.
From this analysis, a few general things can be noted: gender does
not play a role, and as previously shown walking is more associatedwith seeing a known person. For interactions, trips by walking (6.4×)
and cycling (2.3×) are more associated with speaking with the known
person than trips by car. The participants in Canada (− 2.8×) and
Sweden (− 3.7 ×) are less likely to see and speak with someone on trips

Table 5Percentage of trips where a known person was seen.
Japan

Japan

4.3. Type of interaction

N = 740; Likelihood Ratio chi2(12) = 157.5; Prob > chi2 = 0.000; Pseudo R2 = 0.154.

CanadaCanadaAlthough some car trips may be with a non-adult in Canada, those trips
could still be considered an escorted trip in that the children participating in this study could not independently use that mode. Thus, therole of independent trips is examined only for non-motorized modes.
For weekday trips, 60% of trips in the Canadian sample were independent, 75% in Japan, and 64% in Sweden. If a measure of having atleast one trip that was independent is used, 70% of the Canadianchildren, 99% of the Japanese children, and 91% of the Swedish children met this measure.
As can be seen in Table 4, independent trips have a positive inﬂuence (4.6 ×) on seeing a known person. It would appear that travelling
independently, the child may be more observant of their surroundings,
or that they are making trips to locations where it is more likely to see aknown person. Trips to school are again shown to be more likely(2.0 ×) to result in this occurrence. Here, girls are 1.9 times more likely
than boys to see a known person.
The average occurrence of seeing a known person by mode, gender,
and independent trips across the three countries are shown in Table 5.
Statistically (Table 4), compared to bicycle trips, trips on foot are nearly
10× more likely to result in children reporting having seen a known
person. For trips on foot, in Canada it is 9 times less likely than inJapan, and in Sweden 10 times less likely. Boys in Canada are more
likely (2.5×) than boys in Japan to see a known person (all else being
equal).

N = 1104; LR chi2(10) = 299.5; Prob > chi2 = 0.000; Pseudo R2 = 0.204.

CanadaKnown person

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E.O.D. Waygood et al.

Table 7
Multinomial logit regression of interaction type on all weekday trips.
Odds ratio
Didn't see a known person (base case)
Spoke with a known person
Car (reference)
Walk
Bike
Boy
Japan (reference)
CanadaSwedenConstant
Waved to known person
Car (reference)
Walk
Bike
Boy
Japan (reference)
CanadaSwedenConstant
No interaction when a known person was seen
Car (reference)
Walk
Bike
Boy
Japan (reference)
CanadaSwedenConstant
Other interaction with known person
Car (reference)
Walk
Bike
Boy
Japan (reference)
CanadaSwedenConstant

Std. err.

z

P > z

95% Conf.

Interval

0.22
0.38
0.17

8.24
2.18
− 1.03

0.00
0.03
0.31

1.41
0.08
−0.50

2.29
1.59
0.16

0.19
0.21
0.23

− 5.29− 6.08− 7.05

0.00
0.00
0.00

−1.41
−1.72
−2.05

−0.65
−0.88
−1.16

0.34
0.53
0.28

3.48
1.71
− 0.56

0.00
0.09
0.58

0.52
−0.13
−0.70

1.84
1.94
0.39

0.32
0.37
0.37

0.12
− 1.34− 8.03

0.91
0.18
0.00

−0.59
−1.21
−3.73

0.67
0.23
−2.27

0.30
0.53
0.22

5.96
1.86
− 1.09

0.00
0.06
0.28

1.21
−0.06
−0.67

2.39
2.01
0.19

0.25
0.34
0.30

− 4.80− 6.09− 6.96

0.00
0.00
0.00

−1.66
−2.77
−2.67

−0.70
−1.42
−1.49

1.07
1510.180.75

1.69− 0.01− 0.49

0.09
0.99
0.62

−0.29
−2972
−1.84

3.93
2947
1.10

0.75
961.941.14

0.50− 0.02− 4.66

0.62
0.99
0.00

−1.09
−1900
−7.55

1.84
1871
−3.08

1.00
1.00
6.37
2.31
0.84
1.00
0.36
0.27

1.00
3.25
2.47
0.86
1.00
1.04
0.61

1.00
6.06
2.66
0.79
1.00
0.31
0.12

1.00
6.18
0.00
0.69
1.00
1.45
0.00

n = 1106; Likelihood Ratio chi2 = 262.5; Prob > chi2 = 0.000; Pseudo R2 = 0.111.

One means of resolving this question would be to conduct interviews
with the children and ask them directly why no interaction occurred.
Future research questions would be to examine whether there arelinks between a child's social network (friends, community) and thelikelihood of seeing known people. Research from the USA (Grannis,2011) found that trips for children (e.g. to school, to the school bus
stop, etc.) were associated with the creation of community networks.
Are the trips being made by children themselves (i.e. independent
travel) developing and expanding their social networks?
Independent trips had a positive association with seeing known
people in this research and previous work found that CIM was associated with creating neighbourhood social capital (Weller and Bruegel,2009). Further, children's independent mobility (CIM) was also foundto be associated with knowing where to get social interaction (Lim andBarton, 2010). Thus, from a perspective of child well-being (Pollard andLee, 2003; Waygood et al., 2017) independent trips by children are
beneﬁcial.
Those results suggest that encouraging and facilitating independent
walking by children could increase their community connections. Other
researchers have found a positive link between regularly waving or
talking with neighbours and walking for transport in boys and girls(Carver et al., 2005). Having such connections can improve parental
conﬁdence to let children travel independently (Bonner, 1997;
McDonald, 2007b; McDonald et al., 2010), so it would appear to be apositive feedback cycle. Unfortunately, as has been noted in various
developed countries, children's active and independent travel (toschool) is generally on the decline (Buliung et al., 2009; Grize et al.,2010; McDonald, 2007a; Shaw et al., 2013; Susilo and Waygood, 2012).

than the Japanese children. The only signiﬁcant relationship for waving
to someone was walking (3.2 ×). For seeing a known person and notinteracting, walking (6.1 ×) is more associated than driving, and theparticipants in Canada (−3.3 ×) and Sweden (−8.2 ×) were less likely
to have trips with this result. Finally, only walking (6.2 ×) was moreassociated with having some other sort of interaction.

5. Discussion
The previous ﬁndings by Waygood and Friman (2015) on seeing aknown person while walking were found to be robust within Japan, andacross two diﬀerent continents, strongly suggesting that the results areapplicable in at least wealthy countries for children's travel in urban
settings. In line with the previous work, independent trips were also
conﬁrmed to have an inﬂuence beyond that of mode use. In this study
the importance of the trip to school was highlighted as it is two times
more likely to result in a known person being seen which relates toprevious work by (Grannis, 2011). Further, in this new research, it was
shown that the vast majority of such occurrences result in some interaction, with the majority of cases resulted in verbal interaction.
Diﬀerences were found between the countries, with the Japanesechildren reporting more frequently trips where they spoke to someone,
but the diﬀerence for waving was not signiﬁcant. The Japanese children
were also more likely to see someone, but not interact. A number ofpossible explanations exist for this. One may be that small interactions
are occurring such as eye contact, small hand or head movements thatare not being captured by our survey. It could also be that if one regularly sees people, it is not “an event”, so one is less likely to interact.
27

Journal of Transport Geography 63 (2017) 22–29

E.O.D. Waygood et al.

was found to be the mode most associated with seeing a known person
during travel for children aged 10 to 12 in Canada, Japan, and Sweden.
Nearly all children in Japan saw someone they knew during their trips
at least once over a day, for Canada roughly half of the children, and for
Sweden roughly 40%. If having some interaction with that person isconsidered, the percentages reduce to 71%, 44%, and 36% for Japan,
Canada, and Sweden respectively. The majority of those interactions
were verbal. Independence was found to play a role in seeing a known
person beyond trips being on foot or by bicycle.

Lastly, the cities in the study were not identical in population size. The
role of the built environment was examined in Waygood and Friman(2015) in a diﬀerent area of Japan, but it is not clear whether thiswould be the case in Canada or Sweden. Future research could examine
whether diﬀerences exist for diﬀerent cities or built environments in
those countries.
A number of questions arise with respect to these ﬁndings andcurrent trends. If active travel better supports local connections andcommunity, and those are associated with higher measures of wellbeing such as subjective well-being, then might a decrease in active
travel by children be associated with lower subjective well-being outcomes? Or, with modern day technology, is it less important to havesuch physical connections when the Internet and other communication
technologies (ICT) facilitate easy social interaction? In a situation
where youth have freedom to travel, some research suggests that ICT isused to facilitate face-to-face interaction (Kamargianni and
Polydoropoulou, 2014). However, for younger children who might
have more restrictions on their mobility, what might be the role of ICT
for local connections and social interaction? Is it facilitating or substituting? There are many questions, and not all of them lend themselves to quantitative analysis. Along with other questions related to
noticing or not, interacting or not, qualitative research that allows fordiscussion and deeper understanding of these relationships could
greatly improve the knowledge state of these interactions.
The policy implication may be that if a government wishes to support healthy and connected communities, it should encourage walking.
Means of encouraging walking include increasing density, land-use mix,
reduced vehicle speed, and addressing psychological barriers. In a review of environmental determinants of active travel for children, Panter
et al. (2008) found that social interactions, shorter route length, roadsafety, facilities that support active travel, and urban form all wererelated to increased active travel. On urban form, increased social interaction was depicted by children in more walkable neighbourhoods(Holt et al., 2008) and community connections were most common in
the most urban areas in a previous study (Waygood and Friman, 2015).
Traﬃc calming was found to be consistently associated with both increased walking and decreased injuries (Rothman et al., 2014). Walking
school buses are one means of addressing safety and personal security
issues (e.g. Waygood et al., 2015b)) without changing the urban
structure.
The Japanese government speciﬁcally aims to increase community
cohesion through events such as local festivals (Robertson, 1987).
Further, as mentioned above, people are encouraged to greet others(aisatsu), which may result in the children being more attentive to thosearound them. This research has found that it is more likely for Japanesechildren to see a known person during their travels. Obviously, to see
others while travelling between two points, there must be others, so thehigh percentage of independent trips by children in Japan likely helps,
though Sweden also had high independent mobility levels, but this was
not reﬂected in a high likelihood of seeing a known person. However,the Swedish children were the most likely to travel by car (Table 1),
thus, it may be the high number of walking trips that explains thediﬀerence. Thus, policies that encourage and support walking could
lead to the development of social capital as described by Grannis(2011). This paper has shown that walking and independent travel are
more associated with seeing known people, which would support previous studies linking such behaviour with community relations andsocial capital.

Acknowledgements
Financial support for this research was obtained through Grant(#2014-05335) from the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation
Systems (VINNOVA).
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