Three quarters of children aged between 4 and 12 did not travel unaccompanied in 2010, according to Statistics Netherlands.
Children older than 12 were usually allowed to travel alone over shorter distances. Irrespective of age, children are usually accompanied when travelling over longer distances. If children go to school, visit friends or participate in out-of-school activities, they often travel alone.
Within a radius of 500 metres, children are allowed to travel alone in more than half of cases. If they go further away, the proportion of them allowed to travel alone diminishes rapidly. Over distances exceeding 2.5 km, only 10 percent are allowed to travel alone. For children aged 4 or 5 years distance hardly matters: even if the distance is only 500 m, they are nearly always accompanied by an older person. Three quarters of children in the age category 9-12 are allowed to go alone in this case.
