Mobility in post-pandemic economic reopening under social distancing guidelines: Congestion, emissions, and contact exposure in public transit

The application of simulation methods during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review

With the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, simulation modelling approaches have become effective tools to simulate the potential effects of different intervention measures and predict the dynamic COVID-19 trends. In this scoping review, Studies published between February 2020 and May 2022 that investigated the spread of COVID-19 using four common simulation modeling methods were systematically reported and summarized. Publication trend, characteristics, software, and code availability of included articles were analyzed. Among the included 340 studies, most articles used agent-based model (ABM; n = 258; 75.9 %), followed by the models of system dynamics (n = 42; 12.4 %), discrete event simulation (n = 25; 7.4 %), and hybrid simulation (n = 15; 4.4 %). Furthermore, our review emphasized the purposes and sample time period of included articles. We classified the purpose of the 340 included studies into five categories, most studies mainly analyzed the spread of COVID-19 under policy interventions. For the sample time period analysis, most included studies analyzed the COVID-19 spread in the second wave. Our findings play a crucial role for policymakers to make evidence-based decisions in preventing the spread of COVID-19 pandemic and help in providing scientific decision-makings resilient to similar events and infectious diseases in the future.

What can bring transit ridership back: An econometric study on the potential of usage incentives and operational policies in the Greater Toronto Area

The COVID-19 virus has unimaginably disrupted the transit system and its overall functions. Users' vigilant safety concerns posed by the pandemic and the consequent transit avoidance behaviour for a prolonged period could have lasting impacts on their transit preferences, leaving transit agencies to search for effective post-pandemic transit resilience policies. This study examines potential post-pandemic interventions and pandemic-induced psychological attributes impacting the future transit choice behaviour of non-transit users of the pandemic. It utilised data from a transit demand and choice adaptation survey in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada. A two-stage model was formulated to jointly capture the pre-pandemic transit usage choices of those who did not make transit trips during the pandemic and the respective post-pandemic transit choices for these user groups. The models depicted that the post-pandemic transit choices were inversely affected by one's pandemic concerns. In contrast, the choices were positively influenced by respondents' views on post-pandemic transit usage and keeping the adopted safety policies in place. Regarding the conventional level of service attributes, paid park and ride facilities enhanced the probability of post-pandemic transit choice almost by 15% for occasional users. In comparison, the changes due to reliable service ranged from 10 to 11% for pre-pandemic users. Analogous propensity was seen for fare schemes offering free transfers between cross borders and 25% or more off-peak discounts on base fares. Moreover, more direct transit routes and increased parking costs by vehicular modes post the pandemic encourage travellers to retake transit.

Examining the causal relationship between bike-share and public transit in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

As urban transportation systems often face disruptive events, including natural and man-made disasters, the importance of resilience in the transportation sector has recently been on the rise. In particular, the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant decrease in citizens' public transit use to avoid unnecessary physical contact with others. Accordingly, bike-share has been highlighted as one of the sustainable modes that can replace public transit and, thus, improve the overall resilience of the urban transportation systems in response to COVID-19. This study aims to examine the changes in causal relationships between bike-share and public transit throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in Seoul, Korea. We analyzed bike-share and public transit ridership from Jan 2018 to Dec 2020. We developed a weekly panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model to identify the bike-transit relationships before and after the pandemic. Our results showed that COVID-19 weakens the competitive relationships between bike-share and bus transit and modal integration between bike-share and subway transit. This study also found that bus and subway transit were more competitive with each other after the outbreak of COVID-19. The study's findings suggest that bike-share can increase the overall resilience of the urban transportation system during the pandemic situation, particularly for those who rely on public transit for their mobility.

A systematic review of COVID-19 transport policies and mitigation strategies around the globe

This paper reports a Scopus-based systematic literature review of a wide variety of transportation policies and mitigation strategies that have been conducted around the world to minimize COVID-19 contagion risk in transportation systems. The review offers a representative coverage of countries across all continents of the planet, as well as among representative climate regions - as weather is an important factor to consider. The readership interested in policies and mitigation strategies is expected to involve a wide range of actors, each involving a particular application context; hence, the literature is also characterized by key attributes such as: transportation mode; actor (users, operators, government, industry); jurisdiction (national, provincial, city, neighborhood); and area of application (planning, regulation, operations, research, incentives). An in-depth analysis of the surveyed literature is then reported, focusing first on condensing the literature into 151 distinct policies and strategies, which are subsequently categorized into 25 broad categories that are discussed at length. The compendium and discussion of strategies and policies reported not only provide comprehensive guidelines to inform various courses of action for decision-makers, planners, and social communicators, but also emphasize on future work and the potential of some of these strategies to be the precursors of meaningful, more sustainable behavioral changes in future mobility patterns.

Data analytics during pandemics: a transportation and location planning perspective

The recent COVID-19 pandemic once again showed the value of harnessing reliable and timely data in fighting the disease. Obtained from multiple sources via different collection streams, an immense amount of data is processed to understand and predict the future state of the disease. Apart from predicting the spatio-temporal dynamics, it is used to foresee the changes in human mobility patterns and travel behaviors and understand the mobility and spread speed relationship. During this period, data-driven analytic approaches and Operations Research tools are widely used by scholars to prescribe emerging transportation and location planning problems to guide policy-makers in making effective decisions. In this study, we provide a review of studies which tackle transportation and location problems during the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on data analytics. We discuss the major data collecting streams utilized during the pandemic era, highlight the importance of rapid and reliable data sharing, and give an overview of the challenges and limitations on the use of data.

Potential long-term effects of Covid-19 on telecommuting and environment: An Italian case-study

To contain the sudden spread of SARS-CoV-2, many governments encouraged people to work from home, generating an unprecedented diffusion of this activity. Furthermore, Covid-19 has induced drastic changes in everyday life and travel habits, which might persist in the future. This paper aims to understand and estimate the potential long-term impacts of telework on the environment due to the pandemic, by analyzing factors affecting the frequency of telecommuting, the mode choice for traveling to work, and pollutant emissions generated by these trips. Data from a mobility survey administered in Padova (Italy) was used. Results indicate that Covid-19 could cause a rebound effect reversing the positive impacts of working from home, since, even if the number of trips could be reduced, many shifts towards non-sustainable travel modes could occur. The promotion of telework should be combined with measures fostering sustainable travel habits to pave the way towards a future green mobility.

Travel Behavior before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil: Mobility Changes and Transport Policies for a Sustainable Transportation System in the Post-Pandemic Period

This article was motivated by the urban mobility changes observed at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We aim to analyze travel behavior before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil considering two samples of revealed preference online data, independent samples tests, multinomial logit models (MNL), and mixed logit models (ML). The analysis shows a decrease in Urban Public Transport (UPT) use. Comfort and frequency of the UPT service were important factors to attract users during the pandemic period. Ridesourcing services were used for leisure purposes before the pandemic. During the pandemic, they were used for health purposes. Active modes were used more for shopping and leisure purposes during the pandemic. Regarding car users, such as drivers, it was found that they used ridesourcing less often during the pandemic than before. The main contribution of this research concerns the changes in travel behavior that might remain and how these analyses can shape sustainable transportation public policies in the future. Therefore, for a Brazilian study case, this article suggests an increase in the quality of UPT services, a reform on pricing regulations for UPT, an increase in the infrastructure for active modes, an implementation of car demand management strategies, and more strategies to support teleworking as a form of traffic demand management.