TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2022//
TI  - Is "attending nearby school" near? An analysis of travel-to-school distances of primary students in Beijing using smart card data
JO  - Sustainability (Basel)
A1  - Liao, Cong
A1  - Dai, Teqi
SP  - e4344
EP  - e4344
VL  - 14
IS  - 7
N2  - The distance between home and school is crucial for children's mobility and education equity. Compared with choice-based enrollment systems, much less attention has been given to the commuting distance to school in proximity-based systems, as if the institutional arrangement of assigning children to nearby schools can avoid the problem of long commuting distances. Using student-type smart card data, this study explored the spatial characteristics of the commuting distance to primary schools by public transport and the residence-school spatial pattern under the proximity-based system in Beijing. The relationships between long school commutes and house price/age were investigated under the context of school gentrification. For the identified primary student users, fewer than 35% of the students travelled fewer than 3 km to school, while more than 80% of students travelled long distances greater than 5 km, which indicated that the policy of "attending nearby school" did not guarantee a shorter commuting distance to school. Long distances to school greater than 5 km correlate negatively with a lower average house price/building age and fewer students. This finding verified the assumptions from China's school gentrification that people might buy older school-district houses but live far from the school district for a new house. These findings provide a complementary view of previous survey studies and reveal the actual commuting distance by public transport for a group of primary students in a proximity-based enrollment system.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 2071-1050
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su14074344
ID  - ref1
ER  -