Keywords: N.A.
My final academic accomplishment lies before you, a report I worked very dedicated on during my last
academic year at Eindhoven University of Technology. This report finalizes my time as a student
following the master track Urban Systems and Real Estate as specialization track of the master program
Architecture, Building and Planning.
Since September 2020, the Built Environment faculty and especially the Vertigo building has been my
second home, and I have nothing but good memories to this wholesome place, the inspiring people, and
the entire campus.
My thesis process started in the beginning of the 2022/2023 academic year, and I had the opportunity to
pick a topic from a limited selection. Soon my eye was caught by the title: “A platform for stimulating
children’s active transport to school in The Netherlands and Belgium – The impact on the social
environment and behaviour”.
The affiliation I have with this topic is easy to explain. Since I came into this world, I have known no
better than that my mother works as a very dedicated primary school teacher. Hearing my mother
mention the dangerous traffic situations around the school and the decline in active commuting children
in recent years has motivated me to choose this topic to conduct research towards a healthy, sustainable,
and safe school environment.
During the process of writing my master thesis I met and worked with some very driven people, for
which I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to these amazing people.
At first, I would love to express my enormous gratitude towards my first supervisor Dr. Ir. Pauline van
den Berg. She has been an enthusiastic academic mentor and has motivated me through the ups and
downs of the project. I want to thank her sincerely for answering my questions, helping me out whenever
I was a bit lost and above all for being honest in those difficult moments.
I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Dr. Ir. Astrid Kemperman for her commitment during
the process and her insightful feedback. Moreover, I like to thank my third assessor, Dr. Ir. Pieter van
Gorp, for his flexibility to join our meetings online on his phone and for his insightful feedback.
However, performing this study would not have been possible without the participation and support of
the High-Five team and in particular Authier Degryse and Mahité Cnudde. They were always there for
me when I came back with a bulk of questions or recommendations to expand their project further in
Limburg, my home province. Also, the warm welcome and inspiring brainstorming session at HighFive’s headquarters in Kortrijk, Belgium will always stay with me.
My gratitude for my family and friends which helped me through the tough times is huge and I want to
thank them for supporting me along the way.
In the beginning of the process the High-Five team created a personal account for me on their digital
platform. Since then I secretly went through life under an alias, which is the random username that HighFive’s digital platform assigns to every new user. Therefore, I wanted to reveal in this post that for the
past few months, I was going through life as the Funny Chili Mockingbird. However, this is not an
invitation to maintain this nickname.
Last but not least, I want everybody to know that my supervisor Pauline van den Berg has tried to
convince me numerous of times to put on the High-Five mascot suit. I am for ever grateful that I had
the strength to resist this pressure…..