Excess kindergarten travel in Changchun, Northeast China: A measure of residence-kindergarten spatial mismatch

Home-kindergarten travel is an important urban travel activity. This paper firstly discussed the relationship between excess kindergarten travel and residence-kindergarten spatial mismatch. And then questionnaires and GIS are used to provide some baseline analyses of their distribution pattern both statistically and spatially in Changchun. Thirdly, we provide an exploratory analysis of the causes of excess kindergarten travel and spatial mismatch. Results indicate that a) kindergartens in Changchun are highly accessible if children attend their nearest kindergartens, b) however, there is numerous excess travel and high degree of spatial mismatch, nearly 87.1% of the kindergarteners travel excessively, c) the excess travel distances in inner city are much shorter than other areas, and the corresponding spatial mismatch degree is lower. Two critical factors influencing excess kindergarten travel and residence-kindergarten spatial mismatch are summarized. Firstly, the actual causes are a) parents' personal preferences and kindergarten choice tendencies, b) Danwei owned kindergartens generally with higher quality, tendentious enrollment policies, charge threshold, and c) the widespread use of private cars. Secondly, the root causes are limited public expenditure on kindergarten education and its unbalanced allocation, as well as Chinese traditional concept and prevailing way of parenting.