Abstract
GIS Analysis of the Distance and Safety for School Transportation
Track: GIS for Administration, Planning and Policy
Author
School districts often use the travel distance and hazardous barriers (e.g., freeways) as the only factors when deciding students� eligibility for school bus services. This approach may have ignored crime and traffic safety that are important for school transportation.
This study examined the home-to-school routes of 2,605 children from 20 elementary schools in the Austin Independent School District, in Texas, to measure their travel distances and the safety threats in the routes.
Students� homes were geo-coded using Address Locator. The shortest home-to-school routes were identified for all students through network analysis and the travel distances were calculated. Finally, the crime and crash density within 1/8 mile buffers of these routes were calculated by spatial analysis.
Findings suggest that students in low-income neighborhoods are exposed to more crime and traffic accidents. When deciding the students� eligibility for school bus service, the safety measures should also be taken into consideration.
Katsuhiko Oda
Department of Geography, Texas A&M University
810 Eller O&M Building
Collge Station, Texas 77843-3147
United States
Phone: 979-260-1644
E-mail: kirkoda@geog.tamu.edu
Xuemei Zhu
Texas A&M University
002B J.K. Williams Administration Building
3137 TAMU
College Station, Texas 77843
United States
Phone: 979-845-3780
E-mail: xuemeizhu@tamu.edu