A Survey Tool for Measuring Travel Problems: Application to COVID-19
39 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2023
Abstract
To date, few studies have reported on COVID’s impact on people’s travel problems, defined as any difficulty a person may experience in reaching destinations due to a poorly functioning transport system. Hence, this study has two objectives. First, it presents a survey tool to obtain a general understanding of the incidence and severity of travel problems across a population. Second, it provides an assessment of the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis based on two survey rounds, the first deployed prior to and the second during the pandemic. The paper introduces the survey tool, develops indices based on specific travel problem types, and tests their validity and consistency. Bi-variate and multivariate regressions show that the pandemic is associated with respondents experiencing less frequent travel problems. However, only a subset of the population enjoys improvements. Notably, people without vehicle access experienced more frequent travel problems during the pandemic.
Keywords: COVID, mobility status, travel problems, travel insecurity, foregoing trips, reliance on others
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