The Economic Recovery from Traffic Restriction Policies during the COVID-19 through the Perspective of Regional Differences and Sustainable Development: Based on Human Mobility Data in China

In the post-epidemic era, balancing epidemic prevention and control with sustainable economic development has become a serious challenge for all countries around the world. In China, a range of interventions include detection policies, clinical treatment policies, and most notably, traffic policies have been carried out for epidemic prevention and control. It has been widely confirmed that massive traffic restriction policies effectively brought the spread of the pandemic under control. However, restrictions on the use of transportation infrastructure undermine the smooth functioning of the economy. Particularly, China has a vast territory, with provinces differing in economic development, leading industries and transportation infrastructure; economic shock varies from region to region. In this case, targeted policies are the key to sustainable development. This paper sets forth advice for the Chinese government on its measures to boost the economy by analyzing regional differences in the impact of massive traffic restriction policies, based on large-scale human mobility data. After applying the Data Envelopment Analysis model, we classify Chinese provinces into different regions from the perspective of economic gradient, degree of internationalization and level of traffic convenience, respectively. Classification results are matched with the indicators of New Venues Created and the weekly Volumes of Visits to Venues from Baidu Maps. We find that the regional differences in the recovery of investment and consumption levels are striking. Based on the findings, we suggest that the government should adjust the intensity of traffic restrictions and economic stimulus policies dynamically according to regional differences to achieve sustainable economic development.