Urban School Travel – Understanding the Critical Factors Affecting Parent’s Choices Kornilia Maria Kotoula 1(&) , George Botzoris 2 , Georgia Ayfantopoulou 1 , and Vassilios Profillidis 2 1 Hellenic Institute of Transport, 6th km Charilaou-Thermi Road, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece {nilia,gea}@certh.gr 2 Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Kimmeria Campus, 67100 Xanthi, Greece {gbotzori,vprofill}@civil.duth.gr Abstract. Travelling to and from school forms mobility habits and travel behavior aspects of students from a very young age, also adopted in later life. Parents are the key players of the whole mode choice process as in most cases they are the ones to decide how and by which transport mode their children will complete their everyday school trips. Understanding parents’ perceptions on different travel modes and studying the motives behind the mode choice deci- sion in school trips, is a rather essential issue as it may provide useful infor- mation to policy-makers, transport and spatial planners on how to overcome possible barriers and dif ficulties in order to satisfactory cover all students’ future mobility needs. The paper provides an extensive literature review regarding a wide range of factors found to influence students’ travel, following a statistical exploratory factor analysis of a questionnaire survey took place in Thessaloniki, Greece. The initial analysis of the sample identifies key themes while it also develops a comprehensive picture of caregivers’ experiences about travel mode choice to school in a typical Greek urban environment. Some interesting find- ings verify that socio-economic and household demographic factors, built- environment variables, and parents’ attitudes regarding their daily trips and mobility habits, are important factors affecting the school mode choice procedure. Keywords: School transportation  Mode choice  Travel behavior 1 Introduction Travelling to school and back, forms mobility habits and travel behavior aspects of students from a very young age, also adopted in their later life. School students travelling by private vehicle are more likely to present a negative attitude towards other transport modes as adults, while the adoption of policies and the implementation of specific infrastructures that enhance the active transportation (walking and bicycling) may lead to a behavioral change which maintains throughout the students’ adulthood [1]. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. G. Nathanail et al. (Eds.): CSUM2020, AISC 1278, pp. 912–922, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61075-3_88