To what extent does crime potentially inhibit geographical access to schools, measured by cumulative average travel time?
Education is recognized globally as a fundamental human right and essential for promoting equality,
eradicating poverty, reducing crime, and supporting sustainable development. Despite global progress, full educational access remains a challenge, particularly in highly criminal areas.
The paper uses Rio de Janeiro as a case study due to its significant crime-related barriers to education. Despite Brazil’s Federal Constitution guaranteeing free education from early childhood to tertiary levels, the country ranks 38th out of 44 OECD countries for educational participation among children under 14. In urban areas where 88% of Brazilians live, access to education varies widely, worsened by high crime rates that discourage students from attending school and impact their commuting choices. Research shows that violence along school routes increases absenteeism, especially in high-crime areas. The 2019 National Survey of School Health (PeNSE) revealed that 11.6% of students skipped school due to safety concerns while commuting, with public school students impacted at twice the rate of their private school peers. The problem was most severe in Rio de Janeiro, where 17.6% of students missed school due to commute safety—the highest rate in the survey.
This study examines how crime in Rio de Janeiro affects unequal access to education by analyzing school routes and crime data. Using street-level crime-safety scores and routing-based simulations with openrouteservice (ORS), it quantifies how individual risk aversion influences school path choices. The analysis incorporates a crime weight factor, comparing the shortest possible routes with more realistic paths that include detours to minimize crime exposure. This approach provides a nuanced understanding of how urban violence shapes students’ commuting decisions and overall access to education. Focusing on pedestrian travel, the study highlights barriers faced by low-income students and aims to guide urban planning for safer, more equitable education access. It shows the potential of routing-based accessibility analysis to understand social disparities beyond traditional metrics.
Methodology for assessing how urban crime impacts travel time to schools.
The findings stress the importance of integrating crime risk into urban planning and education policy. Policymakers can use these insights to design interventions, such as enhancing security and improving transportation options for at-risk students. The method is adaptable to other urban opportunities like employment and healthcare, and can be refined with real-time data and personalized risk profiles. Future research could also consider factors like school levels, times of day, and transportation modes to deepen the understanding of urban violence’s impact on access to essential services.
Reference: Knoblauch, S., Muthusamy, R. K., Moritz, M., Kang, Y., Li, H., Lautenbach, S., Pereira, R. H. M., Biljecki, F., Gonzalez, M. C., Barbosa, R., Hirata, D. V., Ludwig, C., Adamiak, M., Rocha, A. A. de A., & Zipf, A. (2025). Crime-associated inequality in geographical access to education: Insights from the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. Cities, 160, 105818. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.105818