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The determinants of children’s independent school mobility and the contextual discrepancies between these determinants have not been comprehensively investigated in previous studies. It is important to examine these determinants because independent school mobility is associated with children’s physical activity, according to the literature. This paper examined the associations of different groups of variables such as household, mobility, perceptions, and the built environment with independent school mobility of children between 9 and 12 years using a sample of 1304 girls (50.9%) and boys (49.1%) in seven European countries. The sample was analyzed by Multinomial Logistic Regression, Chi-square test of independence, and Proportional Reduction in Error methods. According to the findings, father’s and mother’s commute mode choice, child’s mode choice of commute to school, child’s bike ownership, parent’s perception of safety, parent’s evaluation of bike lane and sidewalk quality, child’s commute distance, number of driving licenses in the household, accessibility of public transport, and population density in the neighborhood and around the school proved to be very strong and significant determinants of children’s independent school mobility in the Europe-wide sample. The comparison of the levels of independent school mobility did not show any significant differences between high-income countries such as Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, and emerging economies and developing countries like Poland, Greece, Turkey, and Croatia. However, a direct comparison between Poland (emerging economy) (33.6%) and the Netherlands (high-income) (31.7%) revealed significant differences in the level of independent school mobility. This study found the motives for this discrepancy due to the significant difference in bike ownership, the number of household members working outside of the house, household size, commute distances of parents, and driving license possession.

Abstract:Increasing rates of body weight of children has become a motivation for investigating active transportation to school during the past years. Lack of proper data covering different geographical contexts is a problem seen in the literature of this subject. The present paper reports the findings of a recent survey on nine cities in seven European countries funded by the European Commission. The objective of the survey was to provide data covering several topics in relation with active commuting to school and body mass index, such as parental perceptions of safety and security, neighborhood facilities, land use characteristics, etc. in different regions of Europe in a way that cross-sectional comparisons between regions and city sizes is facilitated. For that, 2735 children/parents were handed out questionnaires, from whom 1424 filled out the questionnaires (response rate: 52%). This led to 1304 validated questionnaires. The respondents studied in 21 elementary schools of Foggia, Italy; Berlin, Germany; Thessaloniki, Greece; Rijeka, Croatia; Utrecht, The Netherlands; Łódź, Poland; Konstantynow, Poland; Malatya, Turkey, and Doğanşehir, Turkey as of March 2016 until January 2017. The survey instrument enables development of continuous and categorical variables for empirical research with strong focus on the built environment using the aggregate data provided by this study. It is expected that the output data eases production of knowledge about less-studied European contexts as well as cross-sectional comparison of results with more studied areas of Western Europe.Key words: Active transport to school, children's body weight, urban form, perceived built environment Highlights for public administration, management and planning:• The survey is done on nine cities in seven European countries located in different regions.• 2735 questionnaires were handed out, 1424 of which were filled out; 1304 were validated, providing response rate of 52.07%.• The preliminary and descriptive analysis of data shows cultural and geographical differences in mobility patterns of children, the perceptions, and the body weights.