ABSTRACT
To adhere to health regulations and reduce the risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, employers, mobility operators, and travelers alike adopted new strategies such as teleworking, rigorous sanitation, and social distancing. In this research, we examine the individual-level factors contributing to transit ridership abandonment and return decisions. We utilize comprehensive survey-based data of transit users in the Chicago metropolitan area (N = 5648) collected prior to reopening. We investigate three ridership behaviors, namely (1) discontinued public transit ridership, (2) the intent to return to pre-pandemic transit ridership levels once health concerns are alleviated, and (3) the likelihood of using public transit more often if its fare systems are integrated with other mobility services such as ridehailing and micromobility. Examining the role of sociodemographics, employment characteristics, transit investment priorities, and travel behavior before and during the pandemic, this research reveals fine-grained details about transit usage decline, as well as future intentions. The results indicate that teleworking, unemployment, and vehicle access are the major factors behind discontinued transit ridership. Analysis of race, ethnicity, and gender effects reveals that vulnerable users often have a higher risk of abandonment coupled with a lower likelihood of returning. These results point to the need for transit agencies to consider the specific concerns of ethnic/racial minorities and women. Encouragingly, there is an opportunity for agencies to attract more ridership with fare integration. Several respondent segments would use transit more if fare systems are integrated with ridehailing and micromobility, highlighting the importance of lowering the barriers to accessing these mobility services. This research informs several policies that can be adopted by transit agencies and other mobility providers. We discuss the importance of an equitable return to transit, possibilities for Mobility-as-a-Service with fare integration as a starting point and stress the significance of teleworking in future transit policies.
ABSTRACT
The spread of COVID-19 has been a major disruptive force in people's everyday lives and mobility behavior. The demand for on-demand ride services, such as taxis and ridehailing, has been specifically affected given both restrictions in service operations and users' concerns about virus transmission in shared vehicles. In the early months of the pandemic, demand for these modes decreased by as much as 80%. This study examines intentions to use on-demand ride services in the early lockdown stage of the pandemic in the United States, a period of unprecedented mobility reductions, changing household routines and transforming travel behaviors. Using data from a survey disseminated in June 2020 to 700 U.S. respondents, we use multigroup MIMIC (Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause) models to investigate the stated shift in intentions to use on-demand modes of travel. By using group-based segmentation we control for variation in ridership intentions according to personal, household, attitudinal factors, and pandemic experiences. The results point to a reduction across the board in the likelihood of using on-demand mobility associated with a significant COVID-19 effect. Beyond this general decrease, several groups are found to have more positive intentions, including younger adults, urban residents, graduate-degree holders, and people of Hispanic, Latino, Asian, and Pacific Islander ethnicities/races. The attitudinal effect of "tech-savviness” drives higher user intentions, revealing indirect effects of gender, education, and age. Multigroup analysis provides further evidence of potential COVID-triggered shifts in on-demand ridership intentions. The most significant drops in likelihood are observed for younger respondents (below 45), Black compared with all other racial/ethnic status, and for past users of on-demand mobility. This latter result is somewhat surprising, as riders who are younger and more experienced with on-demand travel are more likely to have been users in the past, but also more likely to reduce use during the pandemic. To conclude, we discuss the need to investigate pandemic experiences, risk attitudes, and circumstances to understand evolving mobility behavior and specific service model impacts.
ABSTRACT
The spread of COVID-19 globally has been a major disruptive force in people’s everyday lives and general mobility. A component of the transportation system that has been specifically impacted by these disruptions is that of shared modes of travel, such as taxis and ridehailing, given the concerns about virus transmission. Today, demand for these modes have decreased by as much as 80%. This study aims to understand the shift in consideration of these modes as a result of unprecedented experiences in order to both, understand the potential recovery for shared mobility modes as well as the behavioral impact of drastic changes in lifestyle on transportation systems. With multiple reports and discussions on how COVID-19 will fundamentally change and redesign urban mobility, this study sets precedence for future efforts in assessing realized behavioral changes in the future. The results indicate that political orientation and experiences during the pandemic are significant in explaining the individual change in intentions to use ridesourcing. Additionally, characteristics such as age and income result in consideration shifts that would normally contradict the typical ridership profiles found in the ridesourcing literature. Specifically, this analysis finds that hailed ride consideration decreases as a function of either age or income. These findings are carefully presented and contextualized in this study.