9. Relationship Between Education and Travel Behaviour

Educational level is an important content and widely used indicator of population quality. The composition structure of residents’ education level can reflect the characteristics of the local population. For individuals, the education experience generally has a significant influence on their living habits and their way of thinking, which may lead to differentiation in travel patterns and travel preferences among groups with different levels of education. In recent years, with the rapid advancement of modernisation and urbanisation, the overall quality of China’s population has greatly improved, education resources in various regions have been largely optimised and the problem of educational inequity or lack of education has been alleviated. However, with ongoing factors such as the gaps in regional development and the unbalanced allocation of natural resources, there is remains long away to go in promoting education equity across regions and giving more consideration to disadvantaged groups. High-quality transport that adapts to population development should fully allow for the livelihood requirements, travel demand and individual preferences of groups with different levels of education to provide inclusive and harmonious transport services. In this chapter, the focus is on the population’s quality structure, and it comprehensively analyses the differences in travel characteristics of different groups taking education level as the key indicator. The results and conclusions may provide empirical evidence for optimising China’s transport system towards the goal of being more human-oriented and sustainable.