Estimating the Impact of COVID-19 on Travel Behavior and Perceptions: An Investigation of Commuting Travel and Intercity Travel in the Northeast Megaregion

The impact of COVID-19 on transportation– both for routine commuting and for less routine intercity transportation trips – has been significant and uneven across modes. As traveler concerns, beliefs, behaviors, and actual travel needs have changed, there are concerns related to the use of pre-COVID-19 travel data to predict travel demand going forward. The extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic will shift the propensity to travel and the mode of travel – both because of changing norms and changing needs – is an open and highly consequential question. The goal of this project is to understand future travel demands (both in trip generation and mode choice) for trips generated from a major anchor institution for both routine commuting and intercity transportation. Through a survey of more than 400 members of the faculty and staff at the University of Pennsylvania – the largest trip generator in the Delaware Valley Region in the Northeast Megaregion – and other sites about travel behaviors prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and their perceptions and plans for travel in the future – the research team will build models that provide new understanding into how changing perspectives and travel needs will shape the future of commuting and intercity travel. The analysis will provide planners, from those looking to incentivize sustainable behavior and control congestion to those planning scheduled transportation modes, with a spatial scenario analysis tool to evaluate future local, regional, and megaregional travel patterns.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $45139
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747135

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)

  University of Texas at Austin
  Austin, TX  United States  78712
• Principal Investigators:

  Ryerson, Megan

• Start Date: 20210115
• Expected Completion Date: 20220730
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Commuting; COVID-19; Impacts; Intercity travel; Mode choice; Surveys; Travel behavior; Travel demand
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Security and Emergencies; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01764456
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747135
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Feb 4 2021 5:44PM