IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/trapol/v111y2021icp53-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public transit use in the United States in the era of COVID-19: Transit riders’ travel behavior in the COVID-19 impact and recovery period

Author

Listed:
  • Parker, Madeleine E.G.
  • Li, Meiqing
  • Bouzaghrane, Mohamed Amine
  • Obeid, Hassan
  • Hayes, Drake
  • Frick, Karen Trapenberg
  • Rodríguez, Daniel A.
  • Sengupta, Raja
  • Walker, Joan
  • Chatman, Daniel G.

Abstract

COVID-19 has upended travel across the world, disrupting commute patterns, mode choices, and public transit systems. In the United States, changes to transit service and reductions in passenger volume due to COVID-19 are lasting longer than originally anticipated. In this paper we examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual travel behavior across the United States. We analyze mobility data from Janurary to December 2020 from a sample drawn from a nationwide smartphone-based panel curated by a private firm, Embee Mobile. We combine this with a survey that we administered to that sample in August 2020. Our analysis provides insight into travel patterns and the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on transit riders.

Suggested Citation

  • Parker, Madeleine E.G. & Li, Meiqing & Bouzaghrane, Mohamed Amine & Obeid, Hassan & Hayes, Drake & Frick, Karen Trapenberg & Rodríguez, Daniel A. & Sengupta, Raja & Walker, Joan & Chatman, Daniel G., 2021. "Public transit use in the United States in the era of COVID-19: Transit riders’ travel behavior in the COVID-19 impact and recovery period," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 53-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:111:y:2021:i:c:p:53-62
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.07.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X21002067
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.07.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Junyi Zhang, 2021. "People’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic during its early stages and factors affecting those responses," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Jeffrey Brinkman & Kyle Mangum, 2020. "The Geography of Travel Behavior in the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Working Papers 20-38, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    3. Élise Labonté-LeMoyne & Shang-Lin Chen & Constantinos K. Coursaris & Sylvain Sénécal & Pierre-Majorique Léger, 2020. "The Unintended Consequences of COVID-19 Mitigation Measures on Mass Transit and Car Use," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-13, November.
    4. Blumenberg, Evelyn, 2008. "Immigrants and transport barriers to employment: The case of Southeast Asian welfare recipients in California," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 33-42, January.
    5. Zhang, Junyi, 2020. "Transport policymaking that accounts for COVID-19 and future public health threats: A PASS approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 405-418.
    6. Zhang, Junyi & Hayashi, Yoshitsugu & Frank, Lawrence D., 2021. "COVID-19 and transport: Findings from a world-wide expert survey," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 68-85.
    7. Luyu Liu & Harvey J Miller & Jonathan Scheff, 2020. "The impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on public transit demand in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.
    8. Lucas, Karen, 2012. "Transport and social exclusion: Where are we now?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 105-113.
    9. Welch, Timothy F., 2013. "Equity in transport: The distribution of transit access and connectivity among affordable housing units," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 283-293.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beck, Matthew J. & Hensher, David A., 2022. "Australia 6 months after COVID-19 restrictions- part 1: Changes to travel activity and attitude to measures," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 286-298.
    2. Xin, Mengwei & Shalaby, Amer & Feng, Shumin & Zhao, Hu, 2021. "Impacts of COVID-19 on urban rail transit ridership using the Synthetic Control Method," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-16.
    3. Wang, Kaili & Liu, Yicong & Mashrur, Sk Md & Loa, Patrick & Habib, Khandker Nurul, 2021. "COVid-19 influenced households’ Interrupted Travel Schedules (COVHITS) survey: Lessons from the fall 2020 cycle," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 43-62.
    4. Loa, Patrick & Hossain, Sanjana & Mashrur, Sk. Md. & Liu, Yicong & Wang, Kaili & Ong, Felita & Habib, Khandker Nurul, 2021. "Exploring the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on modality profiles for non-mandatory trips in the Greater Toronto Area," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 71-85.
    5. Sreten Simović & Tijana Ivanišević & Bojana Bradić & Svetlana Čičević & Aleksandar Trifunović, 2021. "What Causes Changes in Passenger Behavior in South-East Europe during the COVID-19 Pandemic?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-11, July.
    6. Xia, Jianhong(Cecilia) & Nesbitt, Joshua & Daley, Rebekah & Najnin, Arfanara & Litman, Todd & Tiwari, Surya Prasad, 2016. "A multi-dimensional view of transport-related social exclusion: A comparative study of Greater Perth and Sydney," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 205-221.
    7. Rubensson, Isak & Susilo, Yusak & Cats, Oded, 2020. "Fair accessibility – Operationalizing the distributional effects of policy interventions," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    8. Kim, Kyusik & Ghorbanzadeh, Mahyar & Horner, Mark W. & Ozguven, Eren Erman, 2021. "Identifying areas of potential critical healthcare shortages: A case study of spatial accessibility to ICU beds during the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 478-486.
    9. Hanumantha Rao Sama & Long-Sheng Chen & Venkateswarlu Nalluri & Madhavaiah Chendragiri, 2023. "Enhancing service quality of rural public transport during the COVID-19 pandemic: a novel fuzzy approach," Public Transport, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 479-501, June.
    10. Zhang, Junyi & Hayashi, Yoshitsugu, 2022. "Research frontier of COVID-19 and passenger transport: A focus on policymaking," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 78-88.
    11. Lei, Yiyuan & Ozbay, Kaan, 2021. "A robust analysis of the impacts of the stay-at-home policy on taxi and Citi Bike usage: A case study of Manhattan," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 487-498.
    12. Zhang, Junyi & Hayashi, Yoshitsugu & Frank, Lawrence D., 2021. "COVID-19 and transport: Findings from a world-wide expert survey," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 68-85.
    13. Hedi Haddad & Zied Bouyahia & Leila Horchani, 2022. "On the Sustainability of Shared Mobility Since COVID-19: From Socially Structured to Social Bubble Vanpooling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-22, November.
    14. Ding, Hongxiang & Zhang, Junyi, 2021. "Dynamic associations between temporal behavior changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and subjective assessments of policymaking: A case study in Japan," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 58-70.
    15. Zhang, Qiang & Tong, Qiong, 2021. "The economic impacts of traffic consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic in China: A CGE analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 330-337.
    16. Zhao, Pengjun & Zhang, Yixue, 2019. "The effects of metro fare increase on transport equity: New evidence from Beijing," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 73-83.
    17. Xiaoshu Cao & Huiling Chen & Feiwen Liang & Wulin Wang, 2018. "Measurement and Spatial Differentiation Characteristics of Transit Equity: A Case Study of Guangzhou, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-17, April.
    18. Bandyopadhyay, Arnab & Bhatnagar, Sameer, 2023. "Impact of COVID-19 on ports, multimodal logistics and transport sector in India: Responses and policy imperatives," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 15-25.
    19. Allen, Jeff & Farber, Steven, 2019. "Sizing up transport poverty: A national scale accounting of low-income households suffering from inaccessibility in Canada, and what to do about it," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 214-223.
    20. Mwesigwa, Leonard & Yin, Zehui & Farber, Steven, 2024. "Evaluating the level of access and equity of the bus rapid transit (BRT) system: The case of Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:111:y:2021:i:c:p:53-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30473/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.