The Limited Responses of Provincial Expressway Network Operation Quality to the Impact of COVID-19: Taking Shaanxi Province as an Example

Abstract

Recent research indicates that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted road traffic operation quality. From the perspective of service level, safety level, and operation orderliness, this study attempts to analyze the limited responses of the operation quality of the provincial expressway network (PEN) to the impact of COVID-19. The traffic operation data of the PEN in Shaanxi Province were collected for three consecutive years (from 2019 to 2021) before and after the COVID-19 outbreak, including weekly average daily traffic, weekly traffic interruption times, weekly traffic control time, weekly traffic accidents, weekly traffic injuries, and weekly traffic deaths. Through descriptive statistics and dynamic analysis, we studied the limited responses of the safety and service levels of the PEN to the impact of COVID-19. An evaluation model of operation orderliness of the PEN was established by using dissipative structure theory and entropy theory. Results show that in 2020, the service level, safety level, and operation orderliness of the PEN dropped to their lowest. With the gradual control of pandemic, its negative impacts on the service level and operation orderliness of the PEN gradually decreased but did not recover to the pre-pandemic level. In terms of the safety level, the number of traffic accidents, traffic injuries, and traffic deaths decreased, whereas the traffic accident rate and accident casualty rate remained high. In summary, the operation quality of the PEN in Shaanxi Province has had a limited response to the impact of COVID-19.