scholarly journals The impact of COVID-19 on trips to urban amenities: Examining travel behavior changes in Somerville, MA

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. e0252794
Author(s):  
Andres Sevtsuk ◽  
Annie Hudson ◽  
Dylan Halpern ◽  
Rounaq Basu ◽  
Kloe Ng ◽  
...  

While there has been much speculation on how the pandemic has affected work location patterns and home location choices, there is sparse evidence regarding the impacts that COVID-19 has had on amenity visits in American cities, which typically constitute over half of all urban trips. Using aggregate app-based GPS positioning data from smartphone users, this study traces the changes in amenity visits in Somerville, MA from January 2019 to December 2020, describing how visits to particular types of amenities have changed as a result of business closures during the public health emergency. Has the pandemic fundamentally shifted amenity-oriented travel behavior or is consumer behavior returning to pre-pandemic trends? To address this question, we calibrate discrete choice models that are suited to Census block-group level analysis for each of the 24 months in a two-year period, and use them to analyze how visitors’ behavioral responses to various attributes of amenity clusters have shifted during different phases of the pandemic. Our findings suggest that in the first few months of the pandemic, amenity-visiting preferences significantly diverged from expected patterns. Even though overall trip volumes remained far below normal levels throughout the remainder of the year, preferences towards specific cluster attributes mostly returned to expected levels by September 2020. We also construct two scenarios to explore the implications of another shutdown and a full reopening, based on November 2020 consumer behavior. While government restrictions have played an important role in reducing visits to amenity clusters, our results imply that cautionary consumer behavior has played an important role as well, suggesting a likely long and slow path to economic recovery. By drawing on mobile phone location data and behavioral modeling, this paper offers timely insights to help decision-makers understand how this unprecedented health emergency is affecting amenity-related trips and where the greatest needs for intervention and support may exist.

Author(s):  
Ronald Koo ◽  
Youngbin Yim

How traffic information is obtained and how it affects travel behavior when a major freeway is congested are presented and discussed. Immediately following a major highway incident south of San Francisco that caused congestion, a telephone survey was conducted of commuters who use the affected corridor of the highway. The behavior of commuters before and during their commute at the time of the incident was determined, including obtaining traffic information and how the information influenced changes in route, mode of travel, and departure time. The results of the survey suggest that traveler behavior is largely unaffected by individual incidents of congestion. Furthermore, although a fair proportion of commuters do obtain traffic information, they do not often modify their travel behavior in response. This study is one of several that collectively will provide insight into how travel behavior changes over time and allow the authors to assess the impact of TravInfo Traveler Advisory Telephone System in the San Francisco Bay Area.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4163
Author(s):  
Jamil Hamadneh ◽  
Domokos Esztergár-Kiss

Introducing autonomous vehicles (AVs) on the market is likely to bring changes in the mobility of travelers. In this work, extensive research is conducted to study the impact of different levels of automation on the mobility of people, and full driving automation needs further study because it is still under development. The impacts of AVs on travel behavior can be studied by integrating AVs into activity-based models. The contribution of this study is the estimation of AVs’ impacts on travelers’ mobility when different travel demands are provided, and also the estimation of AVs’ impact on the modal share considering the different willingness of pay to travel by AVs. This study analyses the potential impacts of AVs on travel behavior by investigating a sample of 8500 travelers who recorded their daily activity plans in Budapest, Hungary. Three scenarios are derived to study travel behavior and to find the impacts of the AVs on the conventional transport modes. The scenarios include (1) a simulation of the existing condition, (2) a simulation of AVs as a full replacement for conventional transport modes, and (3) a simulation of the AVs with conventional transport modes concerning different marginal utilities of travel time in AVs. The simulations are done by using the Multi-Agent Transport Simulation (MATSim) open-source software, which applies a co-evolutionary optimization algorithm. Using the scenarios in the study, we develop a base model, determine the required fleet size of AVs needed to fulfill the demand of the different groups of travelers, and predict the new modal shares of the transport modes when AVs appear on the market. The results demonstrate that the travelers are exposed to a reduction in travel time once conventional transport modes are replaced by AVs. The impact of the value of travel time (VOT) on the usage of AVs and the modal share is demonstrated. The decrease in the VOT of AVs increases the usage of AVs, and it particularly decreases the usage of cars even more than other transport modes. AVs strongly affect the public transport when the VOT of AVs gets close to the VOT of public transport. Finally, the result shows that 1 AV can replace 7.85 conventional vehicles with acceptable waiting time.


2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-20
Author(s):  
Ana Globočnik Žunac ◽  
Predrag Brlek ◽  
Ivan Cvitković ◽  
Goran Kaniški

Safety analysis focuses on how traffic safety can change while mobility analysis is used to determine how people change travel behavior. The integration of mobility, safety and behavioral data related to COVID-19 can provide valuable insights to decision makers. Wide availability of mobile sensors has given us the opportunity to be able to assess changes in the performance and mobility of transport systems in, almost real time. The researchers also measured the impact of COVID-19 on human mobility using public mobile location data available from many companies such as Google and Apple, which is very useful for changing human mobility. The platforms produce aggregated metrics of daily mobility, including the purpose of travel, the mode of travel, and imputations of social demographics. Based on a comprehensive data set of people who participated in the collected accident data and mobile device data, we record the impact of COVID-19 on traffic safety. The paper systematically and statistically approaches the assessment of road safety in Croatia during the COVID-19 pandemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-20
Author(s):  
Ana Globočnik Žunac ◽  
Predrag Brlek ◽  
Ivan Cvitković ◽  
Goran Kaniški

Safety analysis focuses on how traffic safety can change while mobility analysis is used to determine how people change travel behavior. The integration of mobility, safety and behavioral data related to COVID-19 can provide valuable insights to decision makers. Wide availability of mobile sensors has given us the opportunity to be able to assess changes in the performance and mobility of transport systems in, almost real time. The researchers also measured the impact of COVID-19 on human mobility using public mobile location data available from many companies such as Google and Apple, which is very useful for changing human mobility. The platforms produce aggregated metrics of daily mobility, including the purpose of travel, the mode of travel, and imputations of social demographics. Based on a comprehensive data set of people who participated in the collected accident data and mobile device data, we record the impact of COVID-19 on traffic safety. The paper systematically and statistically approaches the assessment of road safety in Croatia during the COVID-19 pandemic.


2020 ◽  
pp. 193896552093539
Author(s):  
Pankaj C. Patel ◽  
Cornelius A. Rietveld

Policymakers increasingly develop initiatives to influence business and consumer behavior. Among the initiatives to increase the compliance of food establishments to hygiene standards is the public disclosure of hygiene inspection scores. In this study, we analyze the impact of the 2017 law change in King County (Washington state, USA) mandating the presentation of hygiene inspection scores at the front door using an emoji-based display with information about the food establishment’s relative performance to other food establishments in the zip code area. Based on information from 82,545 food inspections in 8,010 food establishments in the period August 2014 to May 2019, we find that the rolling implementation of these displays had a small but meaningful impact on food inspection scores and hygiene violations. As a result of the new display, hygiene scores improved and the odds of failing inspection declined.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Aagerup ◽  
Jonas Nilsson

Purpose This paper aims to expand the emerging field of symbolic green consumer behavior (GCB) by investigating the impact of anticipated conspicuousness of the consumption situation on consumers’ choice of organic products. In addition, the paper also explores whether self-monitoring ability and attention to social comparison information (ATSCI) influence GCB in situations of anticipated high conspicuousness. Design/methodology/approach Two experiments test the study’s hypotheses. Findings The results of both experiments show that the anticipation of conspicuousness has a significant effect on GCB. Moreover, in Experiment 2, this effect is moderated by consumers’ level of ATSCI but not by their self-monitoring ability. Research limitations/implications Because ATSCI significantly interacts with green consumption because of the anticipation of a conspicuous setting, although self-monitoring ability does not, we conclude that social identification is an important determinant of green consumption. Practical implications Marketers who focus on building green brands could consider designing conspicuous consumption situations to increase GCB. Social implications Policymakers could enact change by making the environmental unfriendliness of non-eco-friendly products visible to the public and thus increase the potential for GCB. Originality/value The results validate the emerging understanding that green products are consumed for self-enhancement, but also expand the literature by highlighting that a key motivating factor of GCB is the desire to fit in.


2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Madhavi Ayyagari ◽  
Sanjai Parahoo ◽  
Heather Lea Harvey

Public services are provided by government and have been traditionally supply-oriented. Changing citizen expectations put pressure on government agencies and public sector organizations to be accountable for efficiency and effectiveness. Further, the quest to enhance international competitiveness by ranking high in the echelons of world’s best governments, led to the adoption of proven marketing philosophy and methodologies in the domain of public service as well. The present study aims at examining the impact of Service quality, Reputation and Consumer Engagement on Customer Perceived Value, Satisfaction and Loyalty for an important public service viz., Dubai Metro which operated in an intensely competitive market. The study aimed at developing and empirically testing a structural model of travel behavior based on variables such as satisfaction, value, quality, reputation and engagement that have been found to drive loyalty in various industry settings. An understanding of the drivers of satisfaction contributes to the government’s aim of delivering services that rival the best in the private sector; contributes to the neglected public service context in the service management literature and captures insights that help the shift to service-dominant thinking within the public sector.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lysonski ◽  
Srinivas Durvasula ◽  
Ruth Rayner

Materialism has been given great attention in the consumer behavior literature. How materialistic tendencies are shaped by advertising has also been documented. Yet, the impact of consumers’ materialism on their perceptions of ads is not clearly understood. The goal of this research is to examine the relationship between an individual’s materialism and his/her perceptions of various kinds of advertising. Using four specific advertising appeals (i.e., interpersonal, prestige/status, achievement, and appearance-related), attitudes toward the ad, and thoughts elicited by the advertisement were measured and compared across high and low materialism groups. Significant differences were found between respondents from the two groups with respect to the evaluation of each type of appeal. When prestige/status, achievement, and appearance-related appeals were used in advertising, they were evaluated more favorably by consumers with high levels of materialism than by consumers with low levels of materialism. In contrast, advertising that used an interpersonal appeal was viewed more favorably by consumers with low levels of materialism. The results of this research provide implications for marketers on three perspectives: the furthering of our conceptualization of the materialism construct, the design of promotional communication for specific target markets, and the public policy dimension of targeting consumers more vulnerable to certain appeals.


Author(s):  
Endy Gunanto ◽  
Yenni Kurnia Gusti

In this article we present a conceptual of the effect of cross culture on consumer behavior incorporating the impact of globalization. This conceptual idea shows that culture inûuences various domains of consumer behavior directly as well as through international organization to implement marketing strategy. The conceptual identify several factors such as norm and value in the community, several variables and also depicts the impact of other environmental factors and marketing strategy elements on consumer behavior. We also identify categories of consumer culture orientation resulting from globalization. Highlights of each of the several other articles included in this special issue in Asia region. We conclude with the contributions of the articles in terms of the consumer cultural orientations and identify directions for future research.


2019 ◽  
pp. 109-123
Author(s):  
I. E. Limonov ◽  
M. V. Nesena

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of public investment programs on the socio-economic development of territories. As a case, the federal target programs for the development of regions and investment programs of the financial development institution — Vnesheconombank, designed to solve the problems of regional development are considered. The impact of the public interventions were evaluated by the “difference in differences” method using Bayesian modeling. The results of the evaluation suggest the positive impact of federal target programs on the total factor productivity of regions and on innovation; and that regional investment programs of Vnesheconombank are improving the export activity. All of the investments considered are likely to have contributed to the reduction of unemployment, but their implementation has been accompanied by an increase in social inequality.


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