COVID-19 has upended travel across the world, disrupting commute patterns, mode choices, and public transit systems. In the United States, changes to transit service and reductions in passenger volume due to COVID-19 are lasting longer than originally anticipated. In this paper we examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual travel behavior across the United States. We analyze mobility data from Janurary to December 2020 from a sample drawn from a nationwide smartphone-based panel curated by a private firm, Embee Mobile. We combine this with a survey that we administered to that sample in August 2020. Our analysis provides insight into travel patterns and the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on transit riders.

We investigate three questions. First, how do transit riders differ socio-demographically from non-riders? Second, how has the travel behavior of transit riders changed due to the pandemic in comparison to non-riders, controlling for other factors? And third, how has this travel behavior varied across different types of transit riders?

The travel patterns of transit riders were more significantly disrupted by the pandemic than the travel of non-riders, as measured by the average weekly number of trips and distance traveled before and after the onset of the pandemic. This was calculated using GPS traces from panel member smartphones. Our survey of the panel revealed that of transit riders, 75% reported taking transit less since the pandemic, likely due to a combination of being affected by transit service changes, concerns about infection risk on transit, and trip reductions due to shelter-in-place rules. Less than 10 percent of transit riders in our sample reported that they were comfortable using transit despite COVID-19 infection risk, and were not affected by transit service reductions. Transit riders were also more likely to have changed their travel behavior in other ways, including reporting an increase in walking. However, lower-income transit riders were different from higher-income riders in that they had a significantly smaller reduction in the number of trips and distance traveled, suggesting that these lower-income households had less discretion over the amount of travel they carried out during the pandemic. These results have significant implications for understanding the way welfare has been affected for transportation-disadvantaged populations during the course of the pandemic, and insight into the recovery of U.S. transit systems.

The evidence from this unique dataset helps us understand the future effects of the pandemic on transit riders in the United States, either in further recovery from the pandemic with the anticipated effects of mass vaccination, or in response to additional waves of COVID-19 and other pandemics.

COVID-19 颠覆了世界各地的旅行，扰乱了通勤模式、模式选择和公共交通系统。在美国，因新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 导致的交通服务变化和客流量减少的持续时间比最初预期的要长。在本文中，我们研究了 COVID-19 大流行对美国各地个人旅行行为的影响。我们分析了 2020 年 1 月至 2020 年 12 月的移动数据，样本来自私营公司 Embee Mobile 策划的全国智能手机调查组。我们将其与 2020 年 8 月对该样本进行的一项调查结合起来。我们的分析深入了解了出行模式以及 COVID-19 大流行对公交乘客的直接影响。

我们研究三个问题。首先，公共交通乘客与非乘客在社会人口特征上有何不同？其次，在控制其他因素的情况下，与非乘客相比，公共交通乘客的出行行为因疫情而发生了怎样的变化？第三，不同类型的公交乘客的出行行为有何不同？

根据大流行病爆发前后的平均每周出行次数和出行距离来衡量，与非乘客出行相比，公共交通乘客的出行模式受到大流行的影响更为严重。这是使用小组成员智能手机的 GPS 轨迹计算得出的。我们对该小组的调查显示，在公交乘客中，75% 的人表示自大流行以来乘坐公交的次数减少了，这可能是由于受到公交服务变化的影响、对公交感染风险的担忧以及由于避难所导致的出行减少等综合因素造成的。地方规则。在我们的样本中，只有不到 10% 的公交乘客表示，尽管有感染 COVID-19 的风险，但他们仍能放心地使用公交，并且没有受到公交服务减少的影响。公交乘客也更有可能以其他方式改变他们的出行行为，包括步行的增加。然而，低收入公交乘客与高收入乘客的不同之处在于，他们的出行次数和出行距离的减少幅度要小得多，这表明这些低收入家庭对其出行次数的自由裁量权较小。大流行。这些结果对于了解大流行期间交通弱势群体的福利受到影响的方式以及深入了解美国交通系统的恢复具有重要意义。

这个独特数据集的证据有助于我们了解大流行对美国公交乘客的未来影响，无论是通过大规模疫苗接种的预期效果从大流行中进一步恢复，还是应对新一波的 COVID-19 和其他疾病流行病。