Quantifying the impact of COVID–19 preventive measures on traffic in the State of Qatar

Muley, Deepti; Ghanim, Mohammad; Mohammad, Anas; Kharbeche, Mohamed

doi:10.1016/j.tranpol.2021.01.018

Cited by 50 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…In the case of Sydney, there have been positive outcomes with a clear decrease in total crash and vehicle breakdown frequency during the lockdown periods. The decrease in crashes to the tune of 50–60% is consistent with most of the existing studies in Spain, Greece, Saudi Arabia and the USA [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ]. However, characteristics that indicate more severe incidents (such as incidents labelled as major, fatal and/or involving towing) have increased proportionately, as the decreases have not been as significant as the overall incident rate.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

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A Descriptive Analysis on the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Road Traffic Incidents in Sydney, Australia

Chand

Yee

Alsultan

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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COVID-19 has had tremendous effects worldwide, resulting in large-scale death and upheaval. An abundance of studies have shown that traffic patterns have changed worldwide as working from home has become dominant, with many facilities, restaurants and retail services being closed due to the lockdown orders. With regards to road safety, there have been several studies on the reduction in fatalities and crash frequencies and increase in crash severity during the lockdown period. However, no scientific evidence has been reported on the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on traffic incident duration, a key metric for crash management. It is also unclear from the existing literature whether the impacts on traffic incidents are consistent across multiple lockdowns. This paper analyses the impact of two different COVID-19 lockdowns in Sydney, Australia, on traffic incident duration and frequency. During the first (31 March–28 April 2020) and second (26 June–31 August 2021) lockdowns, the number of incidents fell by 50% and 60%, respectively, in comparison to the same periods in 2018 and 2019. The proportion of incidents involving towing increased significantly during both lockdowns. The mean duration of crashes increased by 16% during the first lockdown, but the change was less significant during the subsequent lockdown. Crashes involving diversions, emergency services and towing saw an increase in the mean duration by 67%, 16%, and 47%, respectively, during the first lockdown. However, this was not reflected in the 2021 data, with only major crashes seeing a significant increase, i.e., by 58%. There was also a noticeable shift in the location of incidents, with more incidents recorded in suburban areas, away from the central business area. Our findings suggest drastic changes in incident characteristics, and these changes should be considered by policymakers in promoting a safer and more sustainable transportation network in the future.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Muley et al (2021) reported a 30% drop in traffic movement and a 37% reduction in crash frequency in Qatar [ 19 ]. A study conducted in Greece and Saudi Arabia showed a 6% to 11% increment in speeding violations and up to 12% increase in harsh braking events during March and April 2020 [ 3 ].…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Descriptive Analysis on the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Road Traffic Incidents in Sydney, Australia

Chand

Yee

Alsultan

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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“…The results show that the distribution of private vehicle mobility over the course of a day was significantly modified by the lockdown and preventive measures in the specific case of Fuenlabrada. This finding shows a distinct behavior relative to other studies such as [ 27 ], where the authors assess the impact of the preventive measures on traffic mobility in Qatar. They observed an overall

reduction referred to their baseline, but which did not alter the hourly distribution of traffic.…”

Section: Mobility Changes Produced By Covid-19contrasting

confidence: 55%

“…With respect to data-driven studies, we can find specific works on private vehicle and public transport that treat them separately, thus lacking of an integrated view. The former focuses on analyzing the impact of the pandemic and the subsequent restrictions on traffic flows as in [ 26 ] (Rome, Italy), [ 27 ] (Qatar), [ 28 ] (several locations in the UK), and [ 29 ] (Slovakia), and its positive effects on pollution [ 26 , 30 , 31 ], and accidents [ 32 ]. Among the works that study the pandemic’s impact particularly related with public transport using data-driven analyses, let us highlight the following research.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of COVID-19’s Impact on Mobility and Short-Term Prediction of Public Transport Demand in a Mid-Size City in Spain

González

Wilby

Díaz

et al. 2021

Sensors

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COVID-19 has dramatically struck each section of our society: health, economy, employment, and mobility. This work presents a data-driven characterization of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on public and private mobility in a mid-size city in Spain (Fuenlabrada). Our analysis used real data collected from the public transport smart card system and a Bluetooth traffic monitoring network, from February to September 2020, thus covering relevant phases of the pandemic. Our results show that, at the peak of the pandemic, public and private mobility dramatically decreased to 95% and 86% of their pre-COVID-19 values, after which the latter experienced a faster recovery. In addition, our analysis of daily patterns evidenced a clear change in the behavior of users towards mobility during the different phases of the pandemic. Based on these findings, we developed short-term predictors of future public transport demand to provide operators and mobility managers with accurate information to optimize their service and avoid crowded areas. Our prediction model achieved a high performance for pre- and post-state-of-alarm phases. Consequently, this work contributes to enlarging the knowledge about the impact of pandemic on mobility, providing a deep analysis about how it affected each transport mode in a mid-size city.

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“…A longer period comparison, 2020 with 2015–2019 showed a reduction of more than 40% ( Marinello et al, 2021 ). Further, an assessment of traffic volumes and safety during the initial months of COVID-19 indicated a reduction of about 30% and 37% in traffic volume and total crashes respectively in State of Qatar ( Muley et al, 2021 ). Anke et al (2021) conducted a survey and denoted that walking and cycling grew in importance while the overall number of trips decreased.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transport impacts in Germany and State of Qatar: An assessment during the first wave of COVID-19

Jaekel

Muley

2022

Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives

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Response measures to contain COVID-19 spread varied from country to country, some imposed a complete lockdown while some imposed partial restrictions. This paper compares the transport impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for two countries having dissimilar characteristics, Germany and State of Qatar, based on the rates of infection and response measures. Secondary data, obtained from Google mobility reports, and primary data, collected from local agencies, were used for comparison purposes. The secondary data comparison from February 2020 to July 2020 indicated an overall decline in mobility for all commercial activities and an increase was noted for parks and residential locations for Saxony, Germany. For State of Qatar, the mobility was decreased to all places except residential locations. Further, the comparison for traffic volumes and the number of crashes during the first wave of the pandemic indicated that the reduction in traffic volumes, major, and minor crashes was coupled with restrictive measures rather than COVID-19 incidences for both countries. Further, the traffic volumes showed a statistically significant inverse linear relationship with the stringency index for both countries during weekdays as well as weekends. These results suggest that the policy measures are key in governing movement restrictions and containing the spread of pandemic rather than the number of COVID-19 incidences. Further, the authorities should monitor the traffic trends during the pandemic and enforce the traffic rules and regulations as soon as the movement restrictions are lifted.

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Quantifying the impact of COVID–19 preventive measures on traffic in the State of Qatar

Cited by 50 publications

References 21 publications

A Descriptive Analysis on the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Road Traffic Incidents in Sydney, Australia

A Descriptive Analysis on the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Road Traffic Incidents in Sydney, Australia

Characterization of COVID-19’s Impact on Mobility and Short-Term Prediction of Public Transport Demand in a Mid-Size City in Spain

Transport impacts in Germany and State of Qatar: An assessment during the first wave of COVID-19

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