Exploring zonal heterogeneities of primary school students’ commute-mode choices through a geographically weighted regression model

Commuting is an important part of primary school students’ travel behavior, which has been concerned for a long time. We found that the commute-mode choice behavior of primary school students in the context of regional segmentation shows strong characteristics in space, but has not yet been considered in traditional research. To fill this gap, this study summarizes the commute-mode choices of primary school students with different characteristics based on the Beijing School Commute Survey. And the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model is built to analyze the zonal heterogeneity of the impact of personal characteristics, family factors and school factors on the primary school students’ commute-mode choices from a low-carbon perspective. The results demonstrate that the possibility of primary school students choosing low-carbon commuting modes is positively correlated with the grade, commuting time, commuting escort type and housing category, but is inversely related with the commuting distance and the distance from the school to the city center. The coefficient estimates of explanatory variables vary across regions. Finally, we put forward policy suggestions regarding promoting the low-carbon commuting structure, such as developing the urban slow traffic system, which serve as a reference for policymakers.