Assessing the effects of Sunday shopping restrictions on urban mobility patterns in Poland

Abstract

This paper aims to examine changes in the transport behaviour of the residents of large cities induced by retail restrictions. The Sunday retail restrictions in Poland have primarily affected shopping trips; with, in many cases, this motivation being shifted to other days of the week, and other travel motivations replacing shopping on Sundays. Along with the data collected from a questionnaire-based survey, ITS traffic data and the data from ticket-validating machines on the use of public transport were collected. In addition, statistical analyses were applied – based on the principal component analysis (PCA) and the multilayer perceptron (MLP). The study revealed that significant changes in traffic density were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly on weekdays and especially during the first wave of the pandemic. Moreover, the implementation of the Sunday retail restrictions resulted in shopping habits moving initially to Saturdays, but as restrictions became stricter, this also expanded to include weekdays.