Exploring Impact of COVID-19 on Travel Behavior

Since its outbreak in December 2019, COVID-19 has spread rapidly across the world. To slow down the spread of the pandemic, various countries have implemented a series of policies and measures. The transportation system is not only an important carrier for COVID-19, but also a vital means for the prevention and control of the spread of the pandemic. Therefore, most anti-pandemic measures are based on travel restrictions, thereby slowing down the spread of the pandemic. As a result, because of the impact of the pandemic and corresponding control measures, the transportation system has undergone tremendous changes. By analyzing the evolution of the transportation system in response to the influence of COVID-19, it is possible to better understand socioeconomic changes and the changes in residents' daily life. Based on rich license plate recognition data, the characteristics of urban motorized travel under the influence of COVID-19 has been analyzed. According to the processes associated with the control of the pandemic and the resumption of work and production, the analysis period is divided into four stages. The changes in indicators of macroscopic traffic status are analyzed for each stage. The three types of typical motor vehicle groups (i.e., non-localized operating vehicles, taxis, and localized operating vehicles) are characterized by the traffic flow they contribute, the number of vehicles in transit, the average travel intensity, the average daily travel time of a vehicle, the average daily travel distance of a vehicle, and the spatiotemporal distributions of origins and destinations of trips. These data clarify the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of peoples’ travel behavior at different stages of the pandemic. The results of data analysis show that COVID-19 has deeply changed the motorized travel behavior of urban residents. In the initial stage of resumption of work and production, the willingness to engage in motorized travel had decreased significantly compared with that in the first stage. This willingness gradually resumed until the third and fourth stages, but still did not fully reach the level before the onset of the pandemic. Specifically, the traffic status during morning and evening peaks has basically recovered, and has even increased beyond the level before the pandemic; however, a certain gap was still found between off-peak hours. There were also significant differences in the extent to which different types of vehicles were affected by the pandemic. Among these, taxis were impacted the most by the pandemic. In the fourth stage (at the end of April), the average daily travel time of a vehicle and the average daily travel distance of a vehicle still decreased by 29.25% and 22.63% compared with the first stage, respectively. The operating time of many taxis was shortened from 22:00 PM to 19:00 PM. The spatiotemporal characteristics of vehicles show that the reduction of flexible travel demand (e.g., shopping, catering, and entertainment) is key to the reduction of the travel demand of the road network. This research provides data support for the implementation of traffic control measures under future grave public health events and enables the formulation of urban traffic policies in the post COVID-19 era.