COVID-19 and Travel: How Our Out-of-home Travel Activity, In-home Activity, and Long-Distance Travel Have Changed

Abstract

COVID-19 has made unprecedented impacts on our daily life. This paper investigates individuals’ immediate response to COVID-19, exploring out-of-home activities, in-home activities, and long-distance travel. Data for the Kelowna region of Canada comes from a web-based COVID−19 Survey for assessing Travel impact (COST). In addition to analyzing the survey, this research models adjustments in travel decisions by developing ordered logit models for in-home and out-of-home activities, and a binomial logit model for long-distance travel. Data analysis suggests a reduction of about 50% out-of-home activities/day/person during COVID-19 compared to the pre-pandemic period, with the only exception being picking up online orders which significantly increased in frequency. Individuals were engaged in longer duration of in-home activities; the average duration of teleworking, online shopping for groceries and other goods at-home was around 5.5 h/day/person, 32 min/day/person, and 26 min/day/person respectively. The out-of-home activity model results suggest that higher income, younger and middle aged individuals, and full-time workers are more likely to decrease their out-of-home activity; whereas, males, lower income groups, health care professionals, and picking up online orders are more likely to increase. The in-home activity model suggests that older and younger adults, higher and lower income, full-time workers, and highly educated individuals are most likely to increase their in-home activity frequency; in contrast, health care professionals are likely to decrease. Long-distance travel model results reveal that seniors, students, and airline travelers are more likely to reschedule; whereas, trips to visit friends and family are more likely to be cancelled.