Decline in Mobility: Public Transport in Poland in the time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Michał Wielechowski,Katarzyna Czech,Łukasz Grzęda

doi:10.3390/economies8040078

Michał Wielechowski, Katarzyna Czech + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/economies8040078

Copy DOI

Journal: Economies	Publication Date: Sep 29, 2020
Citations: 124	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Warsaw University of Life Sciences

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to assess changes in mobility in public transport in Poland, as a consequence of the development of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse the problem from the country and regional (voivodeships) perspective. The data come from Google COVID19 Community Mobility Reports, the Ministry of Health of Poland, and the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. The research covers the period between 2 March and 19 July 2020. The obtained results show that there is negative but insignificant relationship between human mobility changes in public transport and the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Poland. The strength and statistical significance of the correlation varies substantially across voivodeships. As far as the relationship between changes in mobility in public transport and the stringency of Polish government’s anti-COVID-19 policy is concerned, the results confirm a strong, negative and significant correlation between analysed variables at the national and regional level. Moreover, based on one factor variance analysis (ANOVA) and the Tukey’s honest significance test (Tukey’s HSD test) we indicate that there are significant differences observed regarding the changes in mobility in public transport depending on the level of stringency of anti-COVID-19 regulation policy both in Poland and all voivodeships. The results might indicate that the forced lockdown to contain the development of the COVID-19 pandemic has effectively contributed to social distancing in public transport in Poland and that government restrictions, rather than a local epidemic status, induce a greater decrease in mobility.

Highlights

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus2 (SARS-CoV-2), a seventh coronavirus that can spread between humans (Andersen et al 2020).The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the COVID-19 epidemic as a global pandemic on11 March 2020 (Maier and Brockmann 2020)
The Tukey’s honest significance test (Tukey’s HSD test) we indicate that there are significant differences observed regarding the changes in mobility in public transport depending on the level of stringency of anti-COVID-19 regulation policy both in Poland and all voivodeships
In line with WHO recommendations, the Polish government began implementing restrictions and limitations aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19

Summary

Introduction

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus2 (SARS-CoV-2), a seventh coronavirus that can spread between humans (Andersen et al 2020).The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the COVID-19 epidemic as a global pandemic on11 March 2020 (Maier and Brockmann 2020). COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified the COVID-19 epidemic as a global pandemic on. The novel coronavirus pandemic has hit the global economy and societies on an unprecedented scale since the Great Depression (1929–1933), and is epidemically compared to the Spanish flu of the 1918 (Barro et al 2020; Laing 2020). The scientists refer to the COVID-19 pandemic as the giant black swan phenomenon (Goodell 2020; Mazzoleni et al 2020; Wind et al 2020). The spread of COVID-19 has resulted in a reduction in economic activity and led to significant threats to the financial stability of many countries in the world (Boot et al 2020).

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion