Citation

Du B, Zhang C, Qu T, Wang Q, Spring Zhou Q, Cui T, Perez P, Astell-Burt T. Travel Behav. Soc. 2024; 36: e100798.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.tbs.2024.100798

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions to people's daily life and travel. This paper aims to reveal the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people's travel in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, and to explore potential measures to recover public transport patronage in the new normal. Research data is collected from a survey of 1,045 residents in NSW, Australia between October 2021 and May 2022.

RESULTS show that travel behaviors are significantly different during the pandemic compared to the pre-COVID and the new normal periods. Multiple key factors affecting travelers' choices in terms of travel mode, travel purpose and their acceptance of emerging mobilities like on-demand transport, autonomous vehicles and drones are identified, including age group, residential area, household status (e.g., couple family with children), household income, need for travel assistance, and travel-related attitude towards health and safety. The research findings suggest that emerging mobilities could provide potential solutions to transport services in a pandemic scenario.

Keywords

COVID-19; Mobility pattern; New normal; Public transport; Working from home