Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on urban passenger travel demand in the greater Toronto area: description of a multi-pronged and multi-staged study with initial results

Abstract

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 outbreak created a context that was not previously considered by most urban transportation planners and modellers. This paper presents a study design to comprehensively measure the effects of COVID-19 induced Lockdown on changes in travel behaviour and its dynamics. The study is designed for the Greater Toronto Area. The paper presents results from the common portion of four specialized travel surveys. The empirical investigation presented in the paper is on the general pandemic response, in terms of daily activity-travel adaptation behaviour), in the context of around four months of complete Lockdown to stop the spread of COVID-19. Empirical investigation reveals that the Lockdown did not cause any substantial increase in unemployment, but it did force the majority of the residents to telecommute and practice flexible office hours. Overall, results show that Lockdown influences people to engage in more family-oriented activities.