Said Maher, Soria Jason, Stathopoulos Amanda
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
Transp Res Rec. 2023 Apr;2677(4):704-722. doi: 10.1177/03611981221147520. Epub 2023 Feb 8.
The spread of COVID-19 has been a major disruptive force in people's everyday lives and mobility behavior. The demand for on-demand ride services, such as taxis and ridehailing, has been specifically affected given both restrictions in service operations and users' concerns about virus transmission in shared vehicles. In the early months of the pandemic, demand for these modes decreased by as much as 80%. This study examines intentions to use on-demand ride services in the early lockdown stage of the pandemic in the United States, a period of unprecedented mobility reductions, changing household routines and transforming travel behaviors. Using data from a survey disseminated in June 2020 to 700 U.S. respondents, we use multigroup MIMIC (Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause) models to investigate the stated shift in intentions to use on-demand modes of travel. By using group-based segmentation we control for variation in ridership intentions according to personal, household, attitudinal factors, and pandemic experiences. The results point to a reduction across the board in the likelihood of using on-demand mobility associated with a significant COVID-19 effect. Beyond this general decrease, several groups are found to have more positive intentions, including younger adults, urban residents, graduate-degree holders, and people of Hispanic, Latino, Asian, and Pacific Islander ethnicities/races. The attitudinal effect of "tech-savviness" drives higher user intentions, revealing indirect effects of gender, education, and age. Multigroup analysis provides further evidence of potential COVID-triggered shifts in on-demand ridership intentions. The most significant drops in likelihood are observed for younger respondents (below 45), Black compared with all other racial/ethnic status, and for past users of on-demand mobility. This latter result is somewhat surprising, as riders who are younger and more experienced with on-demand travel are more likely to have been users in the past, but also more likely to reduce use during the pandemic. To conclude, we discuss the need to investigate pandemic experiences, risk attitudes, and circumstances to understand evolving mobility behavior and specific service model impacts.
新冠疫情的传播对人们的日常生活和出行行为产生了重大干扰。鉴于服务运营受限以及用户对共享车辆中病毒传播的担忧，出租车和网约车等按需出行服务的需求受到了特别影响。在疫情的最初几个月，这些出行方式的需求下降了多达80%。本研究考察了在美国疫情大流行初期封锁阶段人们使用按需出行服务的意愿，这一时期出行量空前减少，家庭日常活动发生变化，出行行为也在转变。我们利用2020年6月对700名美国受访者进行的一项调查数据，使用多组MIMIC（多指标多原因）模型来研究使用按需出行方式意愿的既定转变。通过基于群体的细分，我们控制了根据个人、家庭、态度因素以及疫情经历而产生的乘车意愿差异。结果表明，与新冠疫情的显著影响相关，使用按需出行的可能性全面下降。除了这种普遍下降之外，还发现几个群体有更积极的意愿，包括年轻人、城市居民、拥有研究生学位的人以及西班牙裔、拉丁裔、亚裔和太平洋岛民种族的人。“技术熟练程度”的态度效应推动了更高的用户意愿，揭示了性别、教育和年龄的间接影响。多组分析为按需乘车意愿可能由新冠疫情引发的转变提供了进一步证据。在年轻受访者（45岁以下）、与所有其他种族/族裔身份相比的黑人以及过去使用按需出行的人群中，使用可能性下降最为显著。后一个结果有点令人惊讶，因为更年轻且按需出行经验更丰富的乘客过去更有可能是用户，但在疫情期间也更有可能减少使用。最后，我们讨论了调查疫情经历、风险态度和具体情况以了解不断演变的出行行为和特定服务模式影响的必要性。
