Active Commuting and Emotional Well-Being: Assessing the effects of Built Environment and Social Events in Shaping Emotions

Active commuting—walking, cycling, or other non-motorized travel—emerged as a conceptual framework in the early 2000s, positioned as an extramural strategy to augment physical activity. The built environment of the commute route – its street connectivity, safety infrastructure, aesthetic quality, support for independent navigation, and facilitation of movement – fundamentally influences feelings of security, anxiety, enjoyment, boredom, competence, and independence. Simultaneously, the rich tapestry of social encounters during the journey – interactions with peers, family, strangers, and the community, as well as unexpected events – directly triggers emotions ranging from joy and excitement to fear and distress. Critically, these factors interact: the environment sets the stage for social experiences, while social encounters color the perception of the environment. However, there is a significant gap in knowledge on how this interaction during the active commute influences momentary emotional states. Addressing this gap will give base for studying how these experiences influence emotional well-being in the longer run and inform the creation of not only safer but also more enjoyable, socially enriching, and emotionally supportive active commuting environments. Specifically, we aim to analyze how the mode of transport, duration, neighborhood walkability, companionship characteristics and social events in active commuting independently and interactively predict real-time emotional states reported during the commute. This investigation is situated within public primary schools located on the urban periphery of Mexico City, a setting characterized by constrained mobility choices and inadequate pedestrian infrastructure. This location was selected deliberately, guided by Salvo et al. ’s (2023) necessity-vs-choice model of physical activity and Sheller’s (2018) mobility justice lens, to center the experiences of children in the Global South where active commuting is often a necessity rather than a choice, and where the urban periphery highlights stark inequities in infrastructural provision and access to safe mobility. The tools used for this research are questionaries, surveys and census official data, thus the data is both qualitative and quantitative. The methodology was designed to capture both objective and subjective dimensions of children´s journeys, prioritizing their agency in articulating mobility experiences. The main output of this research is an e-book summarizing the results, and a podcast or series of video capsules for effective communication to the public.

Sep 22-Sep 26: Revising the main survey tools and raw data already obtained

Sep 29-Oct 10: Creating the database

Oct 13- Oct 31: Analyzing the data using statistical tools

Nov 3-Nov 21: Summarizing the results and editing the e-book report

Nov 24-Dec 5: Designing the podcast or video capsules for dissemination

Dec 8-Dec 12: Publishing and promotion of the e-book and podcast/videos through social media