The goals of active and safe transportation can be achieved by creating a pedestrian-friendly environment. Since walking trips are more likely to be observed in dense urban areas where motorized travel is congested, a safe environment from motorized vehicles is crucial to protecting pedestrians and promoting walking. Thus, identifying locations where pedestrians are most vulnerable is important to further promoting this environmentally friendly and healthy mode of travel. The characteristics of the built environment at these locations help capture attributes that can affect the risk of crashes: for example, development densities and some related land uses attract pedestrian travel, while sidewalks and traffic signals can protect them from colliding with vehicles. As a result, quantifying built environment attributes around a crash-risk location is an important component in modeling pedestrian crashes. A variety of data and methods have been used to identify crash-risk locations in different studies, which have limited comparability across studies and caused complications in interpreting the results. To date, most studies measured the overall characteristics of environments around potential crash locations for pedestrian crash modeling. However, measuring the built environment along an actual pedestrian route can more precisely capture the characteristics related to the risk of a crash than those derived from location-based approaches. Objectively measured mobility data coming from such devices as global positioning system (GPS) and accelerometry have the potential to overcome limitations in location-based analyses. Processing the massive GPS and accelerometer datasets to reconstruct mobility patterns in terms of trips and travel modes requires robust computational power and sophisticated algorithms. Few studies have focused on understanding the details on how these algorithms process data for the purposes of quantifying travel behaviors. In this dissertation, analyses first used a location-based pedestrian safety approach that combined built environment and crash data to identify crash-risk locations and to model pedestrian-motor-vehicle collisions. More specifically, a new protocol was developed to provide a useful tool for identifying unique pedestrian crash-risk locations at intersection and non-intersection areas. Second, the factors affecting pedestrian crashes were evaluated using fine-grained built environment data. Lastly, the automated travel behavior detection algorithm PALMS (Personal Activity Location Measurement System) was assessed: PALMS approach to translate objective measures of individual mobility patterns (e.g., GPS and accelerometry) into trips and travel modes was compared to trips recorded in travel diaries. Studies in this dissertation contribute to the creation of consistent spatial analysis units for location-based pedestrian crash models, which makes it possible for empirical results to be comparable. A cost-effective method is offered to identify unique crash-risk locations. The dissertation also contributes to the literature by showing that factors affecting pedestrian crashes at intersection locations differed from those of non-intersection locations. It provides advanced visualization approaches to interpret empirical model results which can be used to prioritize safety countermeasures according to the characteristics of potential crash locations. Also investigated is the potential of device-collected mobility data from GPS and accelerometers to help identify individual travel modes, and to detect travel routes that can be used for quantifying the built environment attributes. The PALMS algorithm was found to better classify vehicular than pedestrian travel. Lastly, the methods developed to assess PALMS can be generalized and can serve to evaluate different approaches to travel mode classification.

Children's Active Transportation is a rigorous and comprehensive examination of the current research and interventions on active transportation for children and youth. As the travel behaviors of these groups tend to be highly routinized, and their mobility faces unique constraints, such as parental restrictions, mandatory school attendance, and the inability to drive a motor vehicle before late adolescence, this book examines the key factors that influence travel behavior among children and youth, providing key insights into lessons learned from current interventions. Readers will find a resource that clearly demonstrates how critical it is for children to develop strong, active transportation habits that carry into adulthood.

TRB Special Report 282: Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity? Examining the Evidence reviews the broad trends affecting the relationships among physical activity, health, transportation, and land use; summarizes what is known about these relationships, including the strength and magnitude of any causal connections; examines implications for policy; and recommends priorities for future research.

This dissertation addresses three gaps in the existing literature: the unexplained ineffectiveness of built environment interventions, the preferences for active travel behavior under a combination of environmental benefits and risks, and the pathways from active transportation investments to behavioral change. Three studies are designed to address these gaps, with broad implications for public health, environmental justice, transportation equity, and travel behavior research, offering insights for more effective policy and planning initiatives. The first study is a systematic review of planning and public health literature worldwide, with a particular focus on null or unexpected behavioral outcomes resulting from changes in the built environment interventions. The literature analysis offers four perspectives that shed light on why large-scale infrastructure development tends to be less successful, including considerations of individuals' activity budgets, the time required for interventions to become effective, regional context variations, and behavioral change mechanisms. Active transportation infrastructure provides opportunities for physical activity and improves health, but adverse environmental conditions like air pollution, traffic hazards, and urban heat islands can be deterrents to active travel behavior. The second study conducts a stated preference survey on a representative sample of 3,000 adults in the US and uses discrete choice modeling to explore how street users trade off health benefits and risks of utility and leisure walking. Data analysis reveals that poor air quality is the most significant concern for pedestrians, and respondents prioritize a comfortable temperature. Moreover, the study contributes to the environmental justice literature by uncovering that disadvantaged population groups have lower expectations of favorable environmental quality when making travel decisions. The third study compiles a longitudinal dataset covering 260 Core-Based Statistical Areas across the United States by integrating multiple data sources. It aims to examine the pathways from active transportation investments to active travel and overall physical activity. The study also explores the potential mediation effects of pedestrian and bicycle fatality variables along this pathway. The findings indicate that federal funding appropriation for active transportation projects alone is inadequate to bring about significant changes in active transportation outcomes. The mediation analysis also reveals no significant pathways, indicating that pedestrian and bicycle fatalities do not display a significant association with both federal-level active transportation investment and active travel behaviors.

Can transportation problems be fixed by the right neighborhood design? The tremendous popularity of the "new urbanism" and "livable communities" initiatives suggests that many persons think so. As a systematic assessment of attempts to solve transportation problems through urban design, this book asks and answers three questions: Can such efforts work? Will they be put into practice? Are they a good idea?

Children's Active Transportation is a rigorous and comprehensive examination of the current research and interventions on active transportation for children and youth. As the travel behaviors of these groups tend to be highly routinized, and their mobility faces unique constraints, such as parental restrictions, mandatory school attendance, and the inability to drive a motor vehicle before late adolescence, this book examines the key factors that influence travel behavior among children and youth, providing key insights into lessons learned from current interventions. Readers will find a resource that clearly demonstrates how critical it is for children to develop strong, active transportation habits that carry into adulthood. - Discusses the correlates that exist between children's active transportation using a social and ecological model - Summarizes active transportation interventions that show what works to increase non-motorized modes of travel in children - Describes the factors that influence the implementation and effectiveness of interventions

Transportation and Children's Well-Being applies an ecological approach, examining the social, psychological and physical impacts transport has on children at the individual and community level. Drawing on the latest multidisciplinary research in transport, behavior, policy, the built environment and sustainability, the book explains the pathways and mechanisms by which transport affects the different domains of children's travel. Further, the book identifies the influences of transportation with respect to several domains of well-being, highlighting the influences of residential location on travel by different modes and its impact on the long-term choices families make. The book concludes with proposed evidence-based solutions using real-world examples that support positive influences on well-being and eliminate or reduce negative solutions. Brings disparate child transportation material together in one clearly defined narrative Illustrates evidence using a range of examples from Europe, North America and Asia Includes new research developments on the intrinsic aspects of access and externalities