Exploring the factors affecting travel behaviors during the second phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT The COVID-19 outbreak significantly disrupted urban mobility across the world and affected people’s travel behaviors. This paper aims to explore the relationship between socio-demographic and health factors and changes in travel behavior during the second phase of this outbreak. We proposed two measures to assess these changes: (i) whether an individual reduced the number of trips to stores during the second phase of the pandemic and (ii) whether an individual reduced the number of trips by public transport during this period. Two binary logit models were estimated based on survey data from the United States Census Bureau. The results indicate that all variables, including age, gender, educational status, marital status, work loss, difficulty with expenses, household size, work type, income, health status, and anxiousness were significantly associated with changes in travel behavior.