Exploring the Behaviour Change of Crowding Impedance on Public Transit due to COVID-19 Pandemic: Before and After Comparison

After the COVID-19 pandemic, a decrease in travel demand due to the mass transport characteristics of public transit was inevitable, and the impact of the pandemic has increased the need for new transport policies. This study aims to propose transport policies for public transit through comparison by quantitatively measuring passengers' crowding impedance before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The crowding impedances are evaluated through a random parameter mixed logit model from the two surveyed data to compare the behavioral differences before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The behavioral differences are compared using crowding multipliers, and, accordingly, the results show that crowding impedances after the COVID-19 pandemic are about 1.04 similar to 1.23 times higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Transport policies for transit policymakers and operators are proposed to cope with the crisis in public transportation caused by an infectious disease.

Automated summary

After the COVID-19 pandemic, crowding impedance for public transit passengers increased, and this study quantitatively measured the differences and proposed new transport policies.