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Reducing the environmental problems caused by transportation in various trip purposes (especially air pollution caused by cars use) in developed countries is of researches priorities. While in developing countries such as Iran, cultural aspects and environmental norms in discussing the use of cars in school trips (due to the complexity of decision making in school trip mode choice) well not identified. So far, in the field of educational trips have been discussed traffic and urban aspects (Strategies to reduce the volume of traffic), student’s health (encouraging children towards walking or cycling), traffic safety, accident prevention and mode use patterns. Also, less attention has been paid to environmental aspects and its quantification in school trips mode choice. Hence, this study analyses relation of parental norms towards environmental factors besides socio-economic factors in using schools trips modes of elementary students especially household private car what has been done in the frame of questionnaire with their parents. A questionnaire was designed and 1078 Questionnaires were distributed among Parents of students from grade one to three in nine elementary schools (including public and private boys and girls schools) in all districts of department of education in January 2014 (Return Rate: 80%) in Rasht. The questionnaire has three parts: socio-economic part, transport modes in school trips and parental norms towards environment and reducing car use. The questionnaire return rate was approximately 80%. After processing data, 735 questionnaires (more than 68% of total) were identified for analyzing and valid modeling. Based on the data achieved from this field questioning, Binary logit model were used to survey effectiveness and relationships of environmental norms components and socio-economic factors in use of household private car in school trips. Descriptive statistical analysis of the results of socio-economic variables (general characteristic of household) shows that 49.5% of observation were parents of boy student, 78.8% of sample were from public schools, 93.3% of fathers and 67.3% of mothers have driving license. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), with Varimax Rotation implied, a three-factor structure “personal norms ”, “Awareness of Consequences” and “Ascription of Responsibility” for parental environmental norms. Results show that parental environmental norms such as personal norms, concerns, feeling guilty about use of car and sense of responsibility towards the environment can play important role in reducing household private car use in escort of children to school. Also, direct and cross elasticity of logit model show that an increase of one percent of personal norms (Parental concerns about the environment and lees using of household private car) decreases the probability of choosing household private car mode to school by 0.86% and increases 0.15% choosing others school trips modes. An increase of one percent of awareness of environmental responsibilities in the utility of other school trip modes decreases 0.38% the probability of choosing household private car in school trips. Thus, such policies applied by the authorities in order to increasing parental awareness and sense of responsibility about importance of environmental issues with programs such as inviting parents to schools or cultural programs in the media can be effective in reducing car use in school trips.

Keywords: environmental norms, private car, elementary student, binary logit, questionnaire

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