Visiting Scholar Presentation

Visiting Scholar Presentation

On Thursday June 24th, E. Owen D. Waygood, PhD, from the Centre for Transport & Society at the University of the West of England will present on:  

"Children in Transit Oriented Developed Japan: Connections with Neighbors, Independent Travel, and Exercise"

E. Owen D. Waygood, PhD

Research Associate

Centre for Transport & Society

University of the West of England

Bristol, UK

Children’s travel in many developed countries is increasingly by automobile. This should be a concern to society as: patterns established as children often carry through to adulthood; the increased car trip generation contributes to congestion, traffic danger, pollutants, and GHGs; the children loose independence, daily exercise, and other developmental benefits of non-motorised travel. Most research on children has come from the UK and North America, which are both anglo-saxon dominated countries with urban planning roots in the UK. Japan has its own distinct history and recent urban planning roots in the German model of separating industrial uses, but allowing mixed land-use in most other areas. This talk will discuss previous literature on children, and findings from several studies in the Osaka Metropolitan Area that discuss how the built environment and a connection with neighbors influence children’s independent travel and exercise.

Owen Waygood joined CTS in September 2009 as a Research Associate working on a European Union project to reduce CO2 produced by transport through the influence of information on individuals, mass transit operators, and other stakeholders such as government decision makers. His main research interests lie in sustainable travel, particularly the societal impacts of mode choice. His doctoral thesis was on children's travel in Japan with respect to independence, physical activity, and community connections. His past research includes entrenched travel behaviour, mode use trends in shopping, and the built environment's influence on sustainable travel. He is currently researching social-psychological applications to travel behavior change. He is originally from Saskatoon.