The impact of COVID-19 on mobility choices in Switzerland

Hintermann, Beat; Schoeman, Beaumont; Molloy, Joseph; Schatzmann, Thomas; Tchervenkov, Christopher; Axhausen, Kay W.

doi:10.1016/j.tra.2023.103582

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…On the other hand, it appears the capability factors associated with education level and occupation status were associated with decreased mobility, which was observed for both locations during the initial restrictions and Omicron surge. This result is rather unique - while other studies have observed correlations between drops in mobility and education level, these past studies investigated scenarios in which mobility restrictions and COVID-19 transmission were simultaneously present [18, 19]. In contrast, our study examines a period during which mobility restrictions were absent, and the drivers of mobility behaviour change are more likely attributable to discretionary responses to epidemic prevalence and the perception of risk.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Studies that use a single aggregate measure of SES have reported that mobility or behaviour change is the least pronounced for those with low SES [12][13][14]. Studies that consider the components of SES indices have found differing trends of mobility with the SES components, such as a decrease in mobility with income [15][16][17], decrease in mobility with education but no variation with income [18,19], decrease in mobility with income but no variation with education level [20] and decrease in mobility with both wealth and occupational status [21]. While such studies demonstrate that socioeconomic conditions are important considerations for understanding and predicting behavioural responses to interventions, the lack of consensus illustrates the contextual complexity of these questions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic

Kollepara,

Dey,

Tomko

et al. 2024

Preprint

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, both government-mandated lockdowns and discretionary changes in behaviour combined to produce dramatic and abrupt changes to human mobility patterns. To understand the socioeconomic determinants of intervention compliance and discretionary behavioural responses to epidemic threats, we investigate whether changes in human mobility showed a systematic variation with socioeconomic status during two distinct periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. We analyse mobility data from two major urban centres and compare the trends during mandated stay-at-home policies and after the full relaxation of NPIs, which coincided with a large surge of COVID-19 cases. We analyse data aggregated from de-identified GPS trajectories, collated from providers of mobile phone applications and aggregated to small spatial regions. Our results demonstrate systematic decreases in mobility relative to pre-pandemic baseline with the Index of Education and Occupation, for both pandemic periods. On the other hand, the Index of Economic Resources was not correlated with mobility changes. This result contrasts with observations from other national contexts, where reductions in mobility typically increased strongly with indicators of wealth. We interpret these findings in the context of the economic policies put in place by Australian authorities to subsidise household incomes and maintain the essential workforce.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic

Kollepara,

Dey,

Tomko

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Higher levels of compliance will increase the effectiveness of face coverings to reduce transmission. This may be explained by context-dependent acceptability; evidence of travel choices from Switzerland indicated that the introduction of a ‘mask mandate’ did not affect ridership levels [ 37 ], suggesting that such mandates were acceptable to passengers. Finally, it is important to consider the social role of certain mitigations, which may work separately to the actual impact on viral transmission, but can influence passengers perceptions of safety [ 38 ].…”

Section: Discussion/recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public transport: lessons learned by the sector through the COVID-19 pandemic

Gartland,

Coleman,

Farrell

et al. 2023

BMC Public Health

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Background The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the operations and functionality of the public transport sector in the UK. This paper reflects on the experience of this sector through the pandemic period, and considers recommendations for any future mitigations required for either new COVID-19 waves or a different public health emergency. Methods Semi-structured interviews were carried out with public transport experts, organisational leaders, workers and passengers in two phases: Phase 1 from January to May 2021, and Phase 2 from December 2021 to February 2022. Interviews were analysed thematically. Results Using the ‘What? So What? Now What?’ reflective model, ideas are drawn out to describe (a) what changes occurred, (b) what effects these changes had on service provision as well as perceptions of risk and mitigation and (c) what lessons have been learned and how these findings can feed into pandemic preparedness for the future. Respondent reflections focussed on the importance of communication, leadership, and maintaining compliance. Conclusions The wealth of experience gained through the COVID-19 pandemic in the public transport sector is extremely valuable. Through reflection on this experience, specific recommendations are made relating to these factors, covering: maintaining links across industry, access to information and data, understanding of mitigation effectiveness, improving messaging, challenges of behavioural mitigations, and clear lines of accountability. The recommendations made on the basis of this reflective process will help to improve public health strategy within the public transport sector.

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“…The 70 warmest days in 2020 are selected for the analysis. These days fall into the time after the “soft lockdown” in Switzerland, when no differences to pre-pandemic travel patterns for walking can be observed ( 47 ). For the 70 days, the microclimate is calculated between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. in 90 min steps because of the computational capacity of the T mrt calculation, resulting in nine points of time in a day and a total of 630 microclimates for each microclimate zone.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographic Information System-Based Model of Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Case Study for Zurich

Hess

Meister

Melnikov

et al. 2022

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation R

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The importance of walking, the most basic form of transportation, is growing. Climate change and the associated warmer temperatures could reduce comfortable walking distances drastically. There is a clear need to better understand how outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) and walking interact. In this work, thermoregulation of the human body is modeled with the two-node model to determine the influence of the microclimate on pedestrians’ OTC. First, the impact of the current microclimate in Zurich on the route choice of pedestrians is analyzed. No significant correlation is found between simulated OTC of walking a particular route and route choices for all trips, but results for longer trips indicate a possible influence of OTC. It is pointed out that the same assessment could be done for other regions, and the results could contribute to more accurate pedestrian modeling. Second, a tool is developed that can estimate OTC-corrected walking distances from any location. The tool is applied to the current climate and future climate scenarios. The results show that, in the future, OTC of pedestrians in Zurich will be severely decreased. Further, the tool can detect where there is potential for and, through its accessibility approach, quantify improvements to the built environment citywide. Future work should focus on enhancing physiological input parameters to the model. This work provides a novel use of the two-node model for walking subjects in a citywide assessment.

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The impact of COVID-19 on mobility choices in Switzerland

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic

Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic

Public transport: lessons learned by the sector through the COVID-19 pandemic

Geographic Information System-Based Model of Outdoor Thermal Comfort: Case Study for Zurich

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