How Well Did U.S. Rail and Intermodal Freight Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic versus the Great Recession?

This paper analyzes and compares patterns of U.S. domestic rail freight volumes during and after the disruptions caused by the 2007–2009 Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Trends in rail and intermodal (IM) shipment data are examined in conjunction with economic indicators, focusing on the extent of drop and recovery of freight volumes of various commodities and IM shipments, and the lead/lag time with respect to economic drivers. Impacts of the Great Recession and the rebound from it were slow to develop, whereas COVID-19 produced both profound disruptions in the freight market and rapid rebound, with important variations across commodity types. Demand for energy-related commodities (coal, petroleum, and fracking sand) dropped during the pandemic whereas demand for other commodities (grain products and lumber, and IM freight) rebounded rapidly and in some cases grew. Overall, rail freight experienced a rapid rebound following the precipitous drop in traffic in March and April, 2020, achieving a near-full recovery in 5 months. As the recovery proceeded through 2020, IM flow, containers moving by rail for their longest overland trips, rebounded strongly, some exceeding 2019 levels. In contrast, rail flows during the Great Recession changed slowly with the onset and recovery extending over multiple years. Pandemic response reflected the impacts of quick shutdowns and a rapid shift in consumer purchasing patterns. Results for the pandemic illustrate the resilience of the U.S. rail freight industry and the multifaceted role it plays in the overall logistics system. Amid a challenging logistic environment, freight rail kept goods moving when other methods of transport were constrained.

In-person, pick up or delivery? Evolving patterns of household spending behavior through the early reopening phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Consumer reactions to COVID-19 pandemic disruptions have been varied, including modifications in spending frequency, amount, product categories and delivery channels. This study analyzes spending data from a sample of 720 U.S. households during the start of deconfinement and early vaccine rollout to understand changes in spending and behavior one year into the pandemic. This paper finds that overall spending is similar to pre-pandemic levels, except for a 28% decline in prepared food spending. More educated and higher income households with children have shifted away from in-person spending, whereas politically conservative respondents are more likely to shop in-person and via pickup.

Characterizing Ride-Hailing Driver Attrition and Supply in the City of Chicago Through the COVID-19 Pandemic

The flexible nature of on-demand ride services provided by transportation network companies (TNC) has resulted in unique supply-side challenges as the industry deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. Early during the pandemic, there was a 70% decrease in the number of drivers accepting trips on TNC platforms, as individual drivers chose to reduce their risk of viral infection and abide by social distancing recommendations. Given the two-sided market nature of TNCs, the decrease was also the effect of reduced rider demand creating a less desirable driver experience. This paper characterizes and quantifies this change in supply as it relates to driver residency, tenure, attrition, and the number of trips provided. The distribution of drivers accepting trips shifted slightly toward the lower income and higher minority areas of Chicago. Using survival analysis methods, we find that retention among drivers who started in the early months of the pandemic was significantly lower than in reference years, after six months of driving. The results of the negative binomial regression show that drivers on a single TNC platform provided 20% less trips than drivers on multiple platforms. This difference increases to 30% during the pandemic. Additionally, new drivers joined multiple apps during COVID-19, likely to serve more trips and secure higher income. The results of this paper can be used to understand and target driver retention to accelerate the recovery of the TNC industry.

For whom did telework not work during the Pandemic? understanding the factors impacting telework satisfaction in the US using a multiple indicator multiple cause (MIMIC) model.

The COVID-19 pandemic required employees and businesses across the world to rapidly transition to work from home over extended periods, reaching what is likely the upper bound of telework in many sectors. Past studies have identified both advantages and disadvantages of teleworking. The pandemic experience offers a unique opportunity to examine employees' experiences and perceptions of telework given the broad participation duration and extent. While employer strategies will play a major role in defining the future forms and adoption of telework, employee preferences and constraints, such as access to appropriate technology to work from home or the home environment, are also going to be important factors. Using data from a U.S. representative sample of 318 working adults, this study uses a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause Model (MIMIC) to understand employee satisfaction with telework. The presented model links telework satisfaction with experienced and perceived benefits and barriers related to telework, and hence provide a causal structure to our understanding of telework satisfaction. We also present an ordered probit model without latent variables that help us understand the systematic heterogeneity in telework satisfaction across various socio-demographic groups. The results suggest younger and older aged individuals experienced/perceived lower benefits and higher barriers to teleworking compared to middle aged individuals. The results also suggest a disproportionate impact on Hispanic or Latino and Black respondents as well as on those with children attending online school from home. Accordingly, this study highlights important factors impacting telework adoption that employers and policy makers should consider in planning future work arrangements and policies in a post-pandemic world.

Regional Impacts of Telemobility Options: Capitalizing on the Two-Way Relationship Between Infrastructure Investments and Travel Demand [Project]

Communications technologies and e-commerce have a profound effects on travel, on the delivery of goods and services, and consequently, on the use of transportation infrastructure. Experiences acquired as a result of travel restrictions or health concerns, e.g., working remotely, are likely to accelerate some of these trends. Furthermore, widespread deployment of (innovative) services as a result of Covid-19, e.g., telehealth, may, fundamentally, alter travel patterns of many population segments. Changing travel behaviors may have significant long-term implications on the tens of billions of dollars that are invested each year to keep highways, rail lines, ports, airports, public transit systems, and other infrastructure in a state of good repair. For example, as e-commerce accelerates, streets in residential neighborhoods support increasing loads associated with delivery vehicles, and, in turn, deteriorate more quickly and require additional investments to provide the same level of service. Perhaps more importantly, as we are redesigning physical and virtual supply chains for delivery of goods and services, there are tremendous opportunities to guide investments in transportation infrastructure that are going to have effects on travel behavior with both immediate and lasting positive economic, social, and environmental consequences. Examples of significant short-term effects of infrastructure investments include increasing employment. Long-term effects include opportunities to improve the efficiency, level-of-service, reliability, resilience of these supply chains. The project objectives are, therefore, to develop a framework to evaluate the regional life-cycle and supply-chain consequences of investments in design, construction, and management of transportation infrastructure, and to validate it by considering a variety of scenarios.

Understanding Telemobility Behavior Under COVID-19 [Project]

COVID-19 has abruptly upended normal travel, retail and work routines, causing an acceleration of trends that were already underway involving a shift towards virtual environments. The goal of the behavior research team is to understand, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the complex tele-adoption behaviors taking shape during the pandemic era. The research team focuses their analysis on telework and e-commerce engagement with grocery and food delivery, and examine three main research themes: (1) Behavior modeling of telework/e-commerce adoption levels, experiences and future intentions. The research team specifically examines the socio-demographics, satisfaction, values, and life-style variables that shape the adoption experience, and future intentions. (2) Analysis of adoption across multiple engagement layers, i.e. monetary expenditure, time-use, physical travel/virtual access, and parcel delivery activity. The research team specifically highlights the importance of hybrid forms of engagement, namely where respondents use mixed forms of shopping (virtual and physical store visits, new pick-up options) or mixed strategies for work (alternating between office and in-home), and explain motivations, satisfaction and outcomes. (3) Analysis of adoption pattern evolution, seeking to explain changes in e-commerce/work strategies over time. Specifically the research team examines notching up and gateway behavior: that is if experienced segments act differently than novice users, and if specific e-commerce or work experience lead to accelerated or persistent willingness to use telemobility.

Future of Work: Scenario Planning for COVID-19 Recovery [Project]

The Future of Work Scenario Planning Workshop will engage experts in transportation, major employers, and real estate and development companies in June 2021. The experts (n=30 to 40) will define a key focal issue around the future of work in response to COVID-19 recovery and the corresponding timeline for the scenarios (e.g., 1 to 3 years, 4 to 6 years). The workshop will identify key driving forces including critical uncertainties, develop plausible scenario worlds, and identify key policy strategies and research recommendations to maximize social and environmental outcomes. University Transportation Center (UTC) researchers will integrate key findings from the Telemobility UTC longitudinal panel survey, which documents work-from-home/telework activities of respondents and their preferences for the future of work in COVID-19 recovery. The workshop will also inform future UTC respondent surveys on work-from-home/telework. The workshop will focus on employers and real estate/development company responses to COVID-19 recovery based on key driving forces, such as state of the virus/vaccine (public health and safety), employee preferences, and economic factors (productivity and revenue). Experts will examine potential impacts on transportation modes such as public transit, shared mobility, and auto ownership/use. The scenarios will also inform regional modeling efforts and policy strategies to maximize the public good.

The U.S. Railroads and COVID-19: Keeping Supply Chains Moving

This report addresses the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. rail freight service and the prospects for rail as the pandemic recedes, considering likely changes in domestic and global supply chain patterns and emerging developments in e-commerce and the supply chains that support it. It provides data-supported insights into the critical role rail freight plays in the nation’s essential supply chains in the face of the pandemic-induced disruption and post-pandemic economic rebound, looking ahead to the next 2 to 5 years. A key aspect of this role is the contribution of rail to the success of e-commerce, supporting on-demand delivery in the context of competition from other modes, especially trucking and air freight. The findings of this study can help position the rail industry to support emerging trends in sourcing, manufacturing, and consumer purchasing. The main questions addressed in this report are these: How did the rail industry fare during previous economic downturns and corresponding recoveries? How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the rail industry, particularly in terms of trade and shipping patterns, as well as changing markets for energy commodities? How have key industry leaders viewed the impacts of COVID-19, the rebound, the functioning of the logistics system, and particularly the role and performance of rail freight? What are the main opportunities that appeal to the unique strengths of rail service in the post-pandemic period? How can public policy impact the rail freight sector and its competitive position, both positively and negatively, in the post-pandemic period? The approach to this effort comprised four components: (1) monitoring contemporary trade and academic literature on the pandemic, freight and logistics, international trade, and consumptions patterns;(2) graphical and statistical analysis of flows, performance, and pricing of rail and truck shipments for both the 2008 Great Recession and COVID-19;(3) short-term time series forecasting of rail shipments and economic parameters;and (4) in-depth interviews with leaders in the railroad, trucking, and consumer sales sectors.

Capturing the Effects of Social Networks and Mobility on Viral Spread: Agent-based Model and Scenario Application

The spread of an infectious disease is a highly complex process in modern societies. To capture interactions at a microscopic level, this paper presents DYNASPREAD, a DYNAmic agent-based simulation methodology that incorporates a novel mathematical formulation for a three-phase diffusion process for the SPREAD of a virus. Interactions of individuals are modelled both at a social network level as well as due to random encounters associated with travel activity behavior. The model is calibrated to a small study area in Chicago on COVID-19 data, after which intervention scenarios are tested. Initial results illustrate that enforcement of staying at home is necessary during pandemics: enforcing 60% of people to stay at home (randomly every day) can quickly reduce the number of new infections with 40% reduction in total cases. Benefits of quarantine, on the other hand, substantially relies upon how long people stay sick, asymptomatically. Specifically, if the quarantine duration is short, cases can still dramatically increase after reopening. Finally, teleworking with only short walks allowed shows promise in mitigating the spread of the virus, especially early in the life of the pandemic with near 71% reduction in total cases.