The extent of children’s activity spaces – My Espoo on the map survey

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Volume Title

Insinööritieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis

Date

2022-08-22

Department

Major/Subject

Spatial Planning

Mcode

Degree programme

Master's Programme in Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering (SPT)

Language

en

Pages

65

Series

Abstract

The aim of this master’s thesis is to study the extent of activity spaces of children and young people in Espoo. The research is done for the city planning department of Espoo and is based on the My Espoo on the Map survey, which is implemented by the city of Espoo and Aalto University in 2020. In total, 2 404 children and young people around the city responded to the survey and marked their home locations and places they like to visit on the map. In this thesis, a sample of 1 661 children born in 2005 or 2008 and living in the Uusimaa region is studied. Children’s responses are used to investigate how far they travel, what kind of places they visit, and how large are their home ranges. The concept of an activity space is used to study the frequently visited places and mobility patterns of an individual. In this thesis, the activity space is studied with GIS modeling, which is used to define home ranges that cover visited places, homes, and spaces between. Furthermore, the clustering of these places is examined with centricity modeling. Concluding the results, quite a large amount, over half of the frequently visited places are located less than 2 km distance from home. The average size of a home range is 15 km2, but it decreases if car trips are excluded. Most of the respondents have a bicentric home range, which consists of two clusters of frequently visited places. Lastly, the association between activity spaces and urban structure, perceived health, and quality of life are studied. It seems that the respondents with the widest home ranges live more often in loose detached housing areas. Respondents with smaller home ranges were more likely to assess their quality of life as excellent.

Description

Supervisor

Kyttä, Marketta

Thesis advisor

Tvrdy, Jan
Malm-Grönroos, Laura

Keywords

children, activity space, home range, GIS, PPGIS

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