Pengxiang Zhao
Researcher
How did micro-mobility change in response to COVID-19 pandemic? : A case study based on spatial-temporal-semantic analytics
Author
Summary, in English
Cities worldwide adopted lockdown policies in response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), significantly influencing people's travel behavior. In particular, micro-mobility, an emerging mode of urban transport, is profoundly shaped by this crisis. However, there is limited research devoted to understanding the rapidly evolving trip patterns of micro-mobility in response to COVID-19. To fill this gap, we analyze the changes in micro-mobility usage before and during the lockdown period exploiting high-resolution micro-mobility trip data collected in Zurich, Switzerland. Specifically, docked bike, docked e-bike, and dockless e-bike are evaluated and compared from the perspective of space, time and semantics. First, the spatial and temporal analysis results uncover that the number of trips decreased remarkably during the lockdown period. The striking difference between the normal and lockdown period is the decline in the peak hours of workdays. Second, the origin-destination flows are used to construct spatially embedded networks. The results suggest that the origin-destination pairs remain similar during the lockdown period, while the numbers of trips between each origin-destination pair is reduced due to COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the semantic analysis is conducted to uncover the changes in trip purpose. It is revealed that the proportions of Home, Park, and Grocery activities increase, while the proportions of Leisure and Shopping activities decrease during the lockdown period. The above results can help planners and policymakers better make evidence-based policies regarding micro-mobility in the post-pandemic society.
Department/s
- Centre for Geographical Information Systems (GIS Centre)
- Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)
Publishing year
2021-11
Language
English
Publication/Series
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems
Volume
90
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
- Human Geography
Keywords
- COVID-19
- Docked and Dockless bike-sharing
- Micro-mobility
- Spatio-temporal patterns
- Trip purpose
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0198-9715