The neighborhood environment plays a crucial role in children’s personal development. therefore, it is very important to understand the degrees of freedom of movement and other influential factors on children’s various activities in the neighborhood. Previous studies of the influence of the neighborhood environment on children’s activities have failed to determine whether there were any behavioral differences between the children resulting from their respective environmental characteristics. Therefore, this study investigated these causal relationships in terms of the children’s relative degrees of mobility.

A questionnaire sample survey was conducted in Taishan Elementary School and Yi Shiue Elementary School, along with a land use survey from the school district. A total of 522 questionnaires were collected. This study used morphological analysis as the mapping technique to divide the district into different zones, according to their neighborhood characteristics. The mapping result showed seven zones. The downtown area of mixed residential and commercial use (Zones D and E) was characterized as the “central area.” The area of old and new buildings co-existing on the outskirts (Zones B and F) of the central area were characterized as the “peripheral development area.” A difference analysis on the freedom of movement of children living in different zones was then performed. The results confirmed that even though there was no significant difference in the freedom of movement of children living in different zones, the children living in the “central area” had a higher level of independent mobility from home to school, and fewer children were escorted by adults, compared to those living in other zones. However, these differences did not reach a statistically significant level.

Furthermore, a sense of “the unsafe level of the pedestrian system within the district” that a parent had in the central area did not negatively influence the level of children’s independent mobility from home to school. Children from “families with an annual income below 360,000” had a higher level of independent mobility from home to school. For the peripheral development area, “the number of crossroads from home to school” and a “shorter period of parents living in the neighborhood” (3 to 5 years) negatively influenced the level of children’s independent mobility from home to school.

        The grade level (seniority) of children in the central area positively influenced their independent mobility from home to school and play in neighborhood, but had no significant influence in either other districts. Parents’ “sense of closeness and identification to the neighborhood” and “sense of identification to children’s independent mobility” positively influenced the level of independent mobility from school to home of children in different areas. The findings show that parents’ attitudes towards the neighborhood environment and parenting had a more significant positive influence on the level of children’s independent mobility from home to school than neighborhood environment factors.

Wang, Y. H., 1994 , A research on planning of Children's play area in neighborhood park from the perspective of Children's play demand, Taipei： Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University.

Wang, P. C., 2004 , A Study on the Mergence of Metropolitan Cities and Counties/Provincial Cities, Administration and Policy Journal, 39: 1-32.

Lin, M. Z., 1979 , The Preliminary Study of Children's Activities, Taipei： Graduate Institute of Sociology and Medicine, National Taiwan University.

Li, H. F., 2003 , The Study of The Kindergarten Outdoor Playgrounds - The Case Study in Tainan, Tainan：Graduate Institute of Land Management and Development, Chang Jung Christian University.

Lin-Yu, S. C., 2001 , The Research of Children's Commuting Network in the Urban Community, Taipei：Graduate Institute of Architecture, Tamkang University.

Hsia,T. T., 2006 , The Influences of Neighborhood Built Environment on Traveling Physical Activity: An Empirical Study in Taipei Xinyi District, Taipei: Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University.

Ling, G. X., 1980 , Three to Eleven Year Old Children Activities in Northern Taiwan, Taipei：Graduate Institute of Public Health, National Taiwan University.

Chen W. H., 2002 , The Road Environment for the Pedestrians in Elementary School - A Case Study of Taipei City, Taipei：Graduate Institute of Architecture and Urban Design, Chinese Culture University.

Huang, S. Z., 1987 , Children's Play Behavior in Four Neighborhood Parks of Taipei City, Taipei：Graduate Institute of Horticulture, National Taipei University.

Hang, S. L., 2000 , Ecological Land Use Planning, First Edition, Taipei: Chansbook, p.215.

Chang, H., 2005 , An Assessment of Child Development Stimulation in Urban Playscapes - A Case Study in Taipei City Parks, Taipei：Graduate Institute of Architecture and Urban Design, Chinese Culture University.

Chang, H. T., 2007, The influences of built environment on children’s school travel：Empirical analysis of elementary school students in Taipei Wenshan district, Taipei：Taipei: Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University.

Yu, T. P., 2008,，The influences of built environment on children’s leisure trips：Empirical study of elementary school students in Taipei Shilin district,，Taipei：Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University.

Liao, Pei-Ling,(2003), Study on the Planning of Children's Play Space in Taipei, Taipei: Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University.

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Fyhri, A., and Hjorthol, R., 2009, “Children’s independent mobility to school, friends and leisure activities”, Journal of Transport Geography, 17:377-384.

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Kyttä, M., 2004, “The extent of children’s independent mobility and the number of actualized affordances as criteria for child-friendly environments”, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24: 179-198.

Lin, J. J., and Chang, H.T., 2010, “Built environment effects on children’s school travel in Taipei: Independence and travel mode”, Urban Studies, 47(4):867-889.

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Prezza, M., Pilloni, S., Morabito, C., Serante, C., Alparone, F. R., and Giuliani, M. V., 2001, “The influence of psychosocial and environmental factors on children’s independent mobility and relationship to peer frequentation”, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 11:435-450.

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Prezza, M., 2007, “Children’s independent mobility: a review of recent Italian literature”, Children, youth and environments, 17(4):293-318.

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After the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) systems have been constructed and connected, the change of accessibility might differ the land use tendency along the stations in Taipei. In addition, the character and orientation are different from stations to stations, and the land use tendency is worth to investigate. This paper choose Muzha Line as the research object. First of all, we catagorized stations according to the area of commercial and residential uses and diversity index. Furthermore, we used spatial analysis to review land use development pattern on each category and Markov chain to estimate the land use change tendency. The result refers that construction use is consistent with urban development, and the ratio of overall land use change types are 50% of construction use, 9% of agricultural and forest use, 14% of public facility use and 27% of others. As for the ratio of land use been changed, the ratio of construction use and others are the minimum and increasing with the distance to suburb, the ratio of public facility use is the highest in the living core area, and the ratio of agricultural and forest use both higher in the living core area and suburb while commercial core area is 0. The agricultural and forest use is the main urban development prepared area.

Ding, T.J., 1997, “The use of markov chain model on land use change analysis.” Master Dissertation of Department of Geography, National Taiwan University.

Wang, I.F., 2005, “The Analysis of Influence Factors in the Land Use Changes along Metro line—An Empirical Study of the Metro Blue Line.” Master Dissertation of Institute of Traffic and Transportation, National Chiao Tung University.

Chou, T.Y., Chien, F.J. ＆ Lei, T.C., 2003, “Quantitative Analysis Study for Land Use Changes Detection of Urban Area.” Journal of Taiwan Land Research, 6(1):105-130.

Hong, D.Y. ＆ Lin, C.C., 1999, “A Study on the Impact of Subway System and Road Width on the Housing Prices of Taipei.” Journal of Housing Studies, 8:47-67.

Chang, T.C., 2006, “The Simulation Analysis of Land Use Change around MRT Station- A Case Study of Taipei Muzha Line.” Master Dissertation of Institute of Traffic and Transportation, National Chiao Tung University.

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Yen, T.Y., 2005, “The Simulation Model and Its Application of Land Use Change along the Metro Line.” Master Dissertation of Institute of Traffic and Transportation, National Chiao Tung University.

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 Highway Interchange Special Districts (HISD) are planned to facilitate the benefits of having a location proximate to a freeway. The development of HISD may follow two different paths. One is that land is supplied first and population comes in. The other is that people swarms into the districts first and land development follows to alleviate the pressure of physical aspects. A model of two simultaneous equations is used to determine what path is adopted. The independent variable for each of them is population and land use acreages. The two-stage-least-squares technique is employed to estimate the parameters. The model shows that population has positive and significant effect on land use acreage, and vice versa. On the whole, land use development is the cause and then population growth occurs in those districts.

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Chang, Tzu-Chia and Hu, Hai-Feng, 2006, “The Cost of a Dream: The Decision-Making of Interregional Migration”, Journal of Social Sciences and Philosophy, 18(3): 417-441.

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Hsueh, Li-Min, Li, Chung-Wen, and Tseng, His-Peng, 2003, “The Population Migration in Taiwan, and Its Causal Relationship with Labor Market and Housing Market”, City and Planning, 30(1): 37-61.

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 Public Bike Schemes (PBS) have grown significantly in popularity over the last several years, there are more than 30 countries, 135 cities, over 200,000 public bikes worldwide. Many major European cities and Asian cities have launched extensive schemes that are helping to redefine the perception of cycling and create a new form of mainstream public transport for short distance in urban journeys.

 Through the largest schemes in Hangzhou with 50,000 public bikes and Shanghai with 28,000 public bikes in China, the Mainland China has become the largest PBS country in the world. Until 2010, there were more than 60% of public bikes implemented in Asian cities. However, researches and cases studies have been focused on European and American cities, public sectors and research academies have been ignored and neglected the importance of the fast growing phenomena of public bike schemes in Asia.

 Since the green-transportation operating systems and business models of PBS are various and are depended on the diverse continental geography and culture case by case, this research will be focused on the cross-cultural comparison at country’s and city’s bases to differ the key factors between different regions.

 By using RASCH model, this comprehensive comparative research results will be detected and will be provided a set of valuable information for evaluating the performance of Public Bike Schemes (PBS) in Asian cities. The overall goal of this research is to provide suggestions of reasonable public cycling policies and market segmentation to Taiwan.

Beroud ,B., Clavel, R., and Le Vine, S., 2010,“Perspectives on the growing marking for public bicycles focus on

Beswick A., JMP Consultants, 2008, “International Conference on Green Transport Development-Green Transport Summit”, Taipei：Taipei International Convention Center .,26-40.

Bieler, A., 2008, Bikes as a public good: What is the future of public bike sharing in Toronto?,Toronto：Clean Air Partnership.

Buttner, J., Mlasowsky, H., Birkholz, T., Groper, D., Fernandez, A. C., Emberger, G., et al.,2011, Optimising Bike Sharing in European Cities: A Handbook, London: Intelligent Energy Europe program (IEE).

Chang, H.L., and Chang, H.W, 2009, “Exploring Recreational Cyclists’ Environmental Preferences and Satisfaction – Experimental Study in Hsinchu Technopolis”, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 36:319-335.

Chang, H.W. ed, 2011, Hsinchu City Archives Quarterly, 48: 16-23.

Chang, H.W., and Chang, H.L., 2008, “Students’ Perceptions of Difficulties in Cycling to School in Urban and Suburban Taiwan”, Journal of the Transportation Research Board,2060:123-130.

Cola, R., Burke, M., Leslie, E., Donald, M., and Owen, N., 2010, “Perceptions of representatives of public, private, and community sector institutions of the barriers and enablers for physically active transport”, Transportation policy , 17:496-504.   

Curran, A., 2008, TransLink Public Bike System Feasibility Study, Vancouver: Quay Communications Inc.

Daley, M., Rissel, C., 2011, “Perspectives and images of cycling as a barrier or facilitator of cycling”, Transportation policy ,18:211-216.

De Nazelle, A., Morton, B.J., Jerrett, M., and Crawford-Brown, D.,2010, “ Short trips: An opportunity for reducing mobile-source emissions?”, Transportation Research Part D ,15:451-457.

France and United Kingdom”, European Transport Conference, London:Imperial College.,1-25.

Hsieh, H.N, Chang, H.W, and Tang, P.J, 2009, “Recreational Cycling Routes Investment Selection - Hsinchu Technopolis Case” Architecture and Planning, 10(2): 147-161.

Jensen, P., Rouquier, J.B., Ovtracht, N., Robardet, C., 2010, “Characterizing the speed and paths of shared bicycle use in Lyon”, Transportation Research Part D, 15:522–524.

Menghini, G., Carrasco, N., Schuessler, N., Axhausen, K.W., 2010, “Route choice of cyclists in Zurich”, Transportation Research Part A-Policy and Practice, 44(9):754-765.

Shaheen, S.A.,Guzman, S., and Zhang, H., 2010,“Bikesharing in Europe, The Americas, and Asia: Past,  Present, and Future”, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research , 2143: 159-167.

Urban Transportation Showcase Program, 2009, Self-Service Public Bicycle Systems, Ottawa：Transport Canada.

Wang, R., 2011,“Autos, transit and bicycles: Comparing the costs in large Chinese cities”, Transportation policy, 18:139-146.