## 1 Introduction
The Behavioural Model of School Transportation defines the influences of AST through five main domains: proximity, traffic and personal safety, street connectivity, comfort and attractiveness and opportunity for social capital [29]. Previous studies indicate that proximity to school is the most crucial factor [16; 30; 31; 32; 33], and distance was consistently found to be negatively associated with AST [34]. Traffic-related walking safety is also a strong determinant of AST [35; 36], with speed limits and crossing aids in school neighbourhoods associated with more active trips [37]. On the other hand, street connectivity may support AST [32; 38] but also may encourage more car traffic [39]. Attractiveness and aesthetics, including well-maintained green spaces and absence of litter, have been shown to be associated with older children's (often independent) trips [36], although findings are inconsistent [29]. Similarly, land-use mix may be associated with shortest destinations and therefore better accessibility [32], although there is a lack of clear evidence on how the variety of land uses may support AST. Weather and topography may also affect active travelling [29], but this varies with cultural context [38]. Nonetheless, perception of school routes rather than objective qualities of the built environment may be more crucial for AST decision-making [35]. Personal safety and sense of community are found to be related to parents' perceptions rather than objective measures of the built environment [32], which in turn may influence children's independent mobility levels [40]. Nevertheless, children's perceptions of the built environment may be significantly different from those of their parents [41], and children's preferences can influence their parents' decisions [28]. Therefore, it is important to understand children's opinions in this context. According to previous participatory research with children [42; 43; 44], their views and local knowledge can help better understand how the built environment affects school travel behaviour and contribute to giving context and value to interventions that focus on their health and well-being [43]. Behavioural science would support this, as AST could be either reasoned (i.e., walking to school because it is the best possible option) or habitual (i.e., walking to school as part of a morning routine) behaviour [45], and therefore, attitudes are a crucial part of exploring school travel. Attitudes are related to positive or negative views that people have regarding any aspect of reality [46]; according to the ABC model, attitudes consist of cognitive, affective and behavioural components [47]. Previous research on adults found that all three play an important role in explaining travel-related decisions [48], with fewer studies on children's affective attitudes. The school journey is found to be the least pleasant affective travel experience for children [49], while studies show that in addition to the physical and social environments, activities that take place along the journey to school and the means of travelling are themselves important aspects of children's affective experiences. Despite this, children's school travel preferences are scarcely explored in the literature [43; 44]. Overall, school travel is a behaviour and, like many other health-related behaviours, is difficult to change [50] and maintain [28]. At the same time, there is an opportunity for planners and designers, many of whom are unfamiliar with behaviour change frameworks, to support a behaviour change through design. A multidisciplinary understanding of the factors and motivations [51] that influence children's travel behaviour is needed in order to design and apply effective transport policies [29]. Environmental psychology suggests that perception and subjective evaluation of the built environment may influence travel behaviour [52]; however, the bridge between physical environment and behavioural science is still unclear [53].