Abstract
The prevention and control of COVID-19 in megacities is under large pressure because of tens of millions and high-density populations. The majority of epidemic prevention and control policies implemented focused on travel restrictions, which severely affected urban mobility during the epidemic. Considering the impacts of epidemic and associated control policies, this study analyzes the relationship between COVID-19, travel of residents, Point of Interest (POI), and social activities from the perspective of taxi travel. First, changes in the characteristics of taxi trips at different periods were analyzed. Next, the relationship between POIs and taxi travels was established by the Geographic Information System (GIS) method, and the spatial lag model (SLM) was introduced to explore the changes in taxi travel driving force. Then, a social activities recovery level evaluation model was proposed based on the taxi travel datasets to evaluate the recovery of social activities. The results demonstrated that the number of taxi trips dropped sharply, and the travel speed, travel time, and spatial distribution of taxi trips had been significantly influenced during the epidemic period. The spatial correlation between taxi trips was gradually weakened after the outbreak of the epidemic, and the consumption travel demand of people significantly decreased while the travel demand for community life increased dramatically. The evaluation score of social activity is increased from 8.12 to 74.43 during the post-epidemic period, which may take 3–6 months to be fully recovered as a normal period. Results and models proposed in this study may provide references for the optimization of epidemic control policies and recovery of public transport in megacities during the post-epidemic period.
Highlights
IntroductionStrict epidemic control measures have been adopted in many cities such as lockdown and work suspension because of the necessity of epidemic prevention and control, which have played an important role in controlling the rapid and large-scale spread of COVID-19 [3,4,5,6]
The abrupt COVID-19 epidemic has disrupted the normal economic and social development in China and throughout the world, especially for megacities because of their large populations [1,2].Strict epidemic control measures have been adopted in many cities such as lockdown and work suspension because of the necessity of epidemic prevention and control, which have played an important role in controlling the rapid and large-scale spread of COVID-19 [3,4,5,6]
Taxi trip datasets of January to June 2020 are selected for the epidemic period and datasets of May 2019 are selected as the normal period for comparison
Summary
Strict epidemic control measures have been adopted in many cities such as lockdown and work suspension because of the necessity of epidemic prevention and control, which have played an important role in controlling the rapid and large-scale spread of COVID-19 [3,4,5,6]. Those epidemic control policies reduced the number of social and economic activities and had significant impacts on urban transport systems such as the sudden decrease of trips and the change of travel mode. More attentions should be paid on the impacts of the epidemic on urban transport system as well as the travel behavior
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
