The school run: Exploring carpooling as an intervention option in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), Canada Kelly Arbour-Nicitopoulos a , Guy E.J. Faulkner a,n , Ron N. Buliung b , Jennifer Lay c , Michelle Stone a a Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, 55 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 2W6 b Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada c Metrolinx, Toronto, Canada article info Available online 4 April 2012 Keywords: Carpooling Children School travel planning Attitudes abstract The aims of this study were to identity the prevalence of carpooling as a school travel mode in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) and to examine attitudes toward automobile school travel and carpooling among adults who drive their children to school. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,001 GTHA parents/guardians of elementary school-aged children. Analyses indicated that 1.7% of the sample used carpooling as the primary school travel mode in the a.m., while 33.8% of the sample drove their child to school in the a.m. One quarter (25%) of the total sample had participated in a carpool for school travel with neighbors or friends at times. The main reasons for automobile school travel were convenience and safety. Those drivers who indicated carpooling to be more convenient reported carpooling to be more appealing, to interfere less with their current household schedule, were more interested in carpooling, placed a greater importance on using an environment-friendly travel mode, and had a greater proportion of non-English speakers than drivers who indicated carpooling to be inconvenient. These findings confirm that carpooling is an under-utilized school travel mode, and that there may be some scope in intervening among parents/guardians who perceive carpooling to be potentially convenient. & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Motivated by the instability of global energy markets and the productivity and environmental costs of automobile use, travel demand management strategies, aimed at shifting travel for a range of activities from single occupancy vehicle use to more sustainable modes is arguably receiving increased attention in many cities and regions. Active transportation (e.g., walking or cycling), as one form of sustainable transport, has also become a topic of interest to public health researchers given its potential to contribute to overall physical activity levels of adults and children (Panter and Jones, 2010; Faulkner et al., 2009). A prominent context has been the child’s journey to and from school given its utilitarian necessity. There has been, however, a consistent decline in active school transport in Western nations (see Sirard and Slater, 2008). For example, in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada’s largest city-region, walking mode share for trips to school declined between 1986 and 2001 (53% to 42% for 11–13 year olds, 39% to 31% for 14–15 year olds) while automobile mode share increased from 14.6% to 29.2% (11–13 year olds), and from 14.2% to 33.5% (14–15 year olds) in the a.m. periods (Buliung et al., 2009b). Reversing these trends would not only reduce time engaged in a sedentary behavior (passive commuting by car), it would also replace such sedentary behavior with moderate intensity physical activity (e.g., active commuting by walking) while contributing to the broader sustainable transport agenda. Interventions to promote active school transport (AST) are relatively rare while existing research tends to be uncontrolled in nature (NICE, 2008). One common intervention is school travel planning, an intervention that involves the mobilization and application of key stakeholders (governments, parents, children, teachers, school administrators) for the purpose of developing school or perhaps district level plans designed to encourage the use of active travel modes for trips to and from school (Buliung et al., 2011). Promoting walking and biking makes obvious sense if one important goal is to increase overall levels of physical activity during the day; and these active modes are the primary targets of intervention through walking bus schemes, built environment modifications, and educational initiatives as compo- nents of broader school travel plans (NICE, 2008; Buliung et al., 2011). One intervention alternative that has rarely been considered in the AST and school travel planning literature in Canada (Green Communities Canada, 2007a,b) is carpooling (for an exception in the Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tranpol Transport Policy 0967-070X/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2012.03.004 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ416 946 7949; fax: þ416 971 2118. E-mail address: guy.faulkner@utoronto.ca (G.E.J. Faulkner). Transport Policy 21 (2012) 134–140