Evaluating COVID-19’s impacts on Puerto Rican’s travel behaviors

Abstract

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has completely disrupted and possibly permanently changed the way humans travel. In Puerto Rico, major travel restrictions to the island have persisted at different levels since March 2020, which heavily influenced residents’ travel behaviors. However, it remains unclear about how big the impact is and how inequitable it might be. The goal of this study is to evaluate COVID-19’s impacts on Puerto Rican’s travel behaviors by analyzing travel flows from Puerto Rico to the contiguous US with a modified gravity model. The roles of socioeconomic factors regarding the Puerto Rican travelers and COVID-19 factors regarding the destination US states have been assessed. COVID-19 was a strong deterring factor of travel at the beginning of the pandemic and also in the winter of 2020, but it did not keep Puerto Ricans from traveling during the summer 2020 when most travel restrictions were lifted. We found that the elderly population of Puerto Rico, despite being more vulnerable to COVID-19, were much more likely to travel during the pandemic. We also found that, during the holiday season in 2020, some socioeconomically disadvantaged populations were more likely to be traveling, a direct contradiction to their travel flows the year prior. These findings shed light on about how disproportionately affected populations behavior changed from pre-pandemic to after the pandemic started. With the continuance of the pandemic, this information is extremely valuable for future planning with respect to emergency management, travel regulation, and social benefit.