Exploring sustainable student travel behaviour in The Netherlands

Exploring sustainable student travel behaviour in The Netherlands: balancing online and on-campus learning

Versteijlen, Marieke (Wageningen University & Research; Avans Hogeschool Breda)
van Wee, G.P. (TU Delft Transport and Logistics)
Wals, Arjen (Wageningen University & Research)

2021

Purpose: Daily commuting trips of higher education (HE) students account for a large proportion of the carbon footprint of a HE institution. Considerations of students underlying their choice of travel mode and their decision to make the trip to campus or to study online are explored as a necessary first step for finding an optimal balance between online and on-campus learning from both a sustainability and an educational perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Focus group conversations were held with student groups from different study programmes of a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands. Findings: Dutch students’ travel mode choices seem to depend on measures regulating travel demand such as a free public transport card and high parking costs. The findings indicate that students make reasoned choices about making a trip to campus. These choices depend on considerations about their schedule, type, lecturer and content of a course, social norms and their own perceived behavioural control. Alternative online options can provide students with more flexibility to make choices adapted to their needs. Social implications: While these findings are useful for sustainable and educational reasons, they also seem helpful in times of COVID-19 which calls for a re-design of curricula to allow for blended forms of online and on-campus learning. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first studies looking at students’ considerations when deciding whether to travel to campus to learn or stay at home learning online.

Carbon footprint
Class attendance
Higher education
On-campus learning
Online learning
Student travel behaviour

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b105f6d0-4d7f-414f-ada1-d648dad7d1b7

https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-10-2020-0400

1467-6370

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 22 (8), 146-166

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2021 Marieke Versteijlen, G.P. van Wee, Arjen Wals