Gao Jingqin, Lee Change Dae, Ozbay Kaan, Zuo Fan, Chippendale Tracy L
C2SMART Center, Department of Civil and Urban Engineering, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, 6 MetroTech Center, 4th Floor, RM456, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA.
Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, 6425 Penn Avenue, Suite 400, Pittsburgh, PA 15206, USA.
Transp Res Interdiscip Perspect. 2023 May;19:100815. doi: 10.1016/j.trip.2023.100815. Epub 2023 Mar 30.
The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted lifestyles and travel patterns, revealing existing societal and transportation gaps and introducing new challenges. In the context of an aging population, this study investigated how the travel behaviors of older adults (aged 60+) in New York City were affected by COVID-19, using an online survey and analyzing younger adult (aged 18-59) data for comparative analysis. The purpose of the study is to understand the pandemic's effects on older adults' travel purpose and frequency, challenges faced during essential trips, and to identify potential policies to enhance their mobility during future crises. Descriptive analysis and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to summarize the changes in employment status, trip purposes, transportation mode usage, and attitude regarding transportation systems before and during the outbreak and after the travel restrictions were lifted. A Natural Language Processing model, Gibbs Sampling Dirichlet Multinomial Mixture, was adopted to open-ended questions due to its advantage in extracting information from short text. The findings show differences between older and younger adults in telework and increased essential-purpose trips (e.g., medical visits) for older adults. The pandemic increased older adults' concern about health, safety, comfort, prices when choosing travel mode, leading to reduced transit use and walking, increased driving, and limited bike use. To reduce travel burdens and maintain older adults' employment, targeted programs improving digital skills (telework, telehealth, telemedicine) are recommended. Additionally, safe, affordable, and accessible transportation alternatives are necessary to ensure mobility and essential trips for older adults, along with facilitation of walkable communities.
新冠疫情对生活方式和出行模式产生了巨大影响，暴露出社会和交通方面现存的差距，并带来了新的挑战。在人口老龄化的背景下，本研究调查了新冠疫情如何影响纽约市老年人（60岁及以上）的出行行为，通过在线调查并分析年轻人（18 - 59岁）的数据进行对比分析。该研究的目的是了解疫情对老年人出行目的和频率的影响、必要出行期间面临的挑战，并确定在未来危机期间提高他们出行便利性的潜在政策。描述性分析和威尔科克森符号秩检验用于总结疫情爆发前、爆发期间以及出行限制解除后就业状况、出行目的、交通方式使用情况以及对交通系统态度的变化。由于自然语言处理模型吉布斯采样狄利克雷多项式混合模型在从短文本中提取信息方面具有优势，因此被用于开放性问题。研究结果显示，老年人和年轻人在远程工作方面存在差异，且老年人必要出行（如就医）有所增加。疫情增加了老年人在选择出行方式时对健康、安全、舒适度和价格的担忧，导致公共交通使用和步行减少，驾车增加，自行车使用受限。为减轻出行负担并维持老年人就业，建议实施有针对性的提升数字技能（远程工作、远程健康、远程医疗）的项目。此外，安全、经济实惠且便捷的交通替代方案对于确保老年人的出行便利性和必要出行至关重要，同时还需促进适宜步行的社区建设。
