Measuring the Level of Sprawl by Utilizing the Combination of Sprawl Indices (Case Study of North Khorasan Province)

According to city administrators, the main challenge of the city of Birjand is currently the traffic issue, and apparently one of the main factors influencing this trend is educational trips with personal vehicles. For this purpose, the present study seeks to investigate the patterns of Birjand students' educational trips in an analytical and descriptive method. The required data were collected using library research, as well as administrative and field work. Multivariate analysis, canonical correspondence analysis and multivariate regression were used to analyze data. The results showed that the most important effective factors in prevailing trips patterns include the distance between home and school while student’s age and gender had the highest effects among personal factors. According to the findings of this survey, proper distribution of schools, the relative balance in the quality of schools, providing security in general, and particularly sidewalks and bike paths are effective in reducing the use of personal cars and educational trips taken by personal vehicles, while sustainable trips will be achieved.