Jiao Junfeng, Hansen Kent, Azimian Amin
Urban Information Lab, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
Transp Res Rec. 2023 Apr;2677(4):287-297. doi: 10.1177/03611981231159906. Epub 2023 Apr 11.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted day-to-day lives and infrastructure across the United States, including public transit systems, which saw precipitous declines in ridership beginning in March 2020. This study aimed to explore the disparities in ridership decline across census tracts in Austin, TX and whether demographic and spatial characteristics exist that are related to these declines. Transit ridership data from the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority were used in conjunction with American Community Survey data to understand the spatial distribution of ridership changes caused by the pandemic. Using a multivariate clustering analysis as well as geographically weighted regression models, the analysis indicated that areas of the city with older populations as well as higher percentages of Black and Hispanic populations were associated with less severe declines in ridership, whereas areas with higher unemployment saw steeper declines. The percentage of Hispanic residents appeared to affect ridership most clearly in the center of Austin. These findings support and expand on previous research that found that the impacts of the pandemic on transit ridership have emphasized the disparities in transit usage and dependence across the United States and within cities.
新冠疫情扰乱了美国各地的日常生活和基础设施，包括公共交通系统，自2020年3月起，公共交通系统的客流量急剧下降。本研究旨在探讨德克萨斯州奥斯汀市各人口普查区客流量下降的差异，以及是否存在与这些下降相关的人口和空间特征。首都都市交通管理局的公共交通客流量数据与美国社区调查数据相结合，以了解疫情导致的客流量变化的空间分布。通过多元聚类分析以及地理加权回归模型，分析表明，城市中人口年龄较大以及黑人和西班牙裔人口比例较高的地区，客流量下降幅度较小，而失业率较高的地区下降幅度更大。西班牙裔居民的比例似乎在奥斯汀市中心对客流量的影响最为明显。这些发现支持并扩展了先前的研究，该研究发现疫情对公共交通客流量的影响凸显了美国各地以及城市内部在公共交通使用和依赖方面的差异。
