TY - JOUR

T1 - Transport disrupted

T2 - Substituting public transport by bike or car under Covid 19

AU - Schaefer, Kerstin Jutta

AU - Tuitjer, Anne Leonie Georgine

AU - Levin-Keitel, Meike

N1 - Funding Information: Foremost, we would like to thank the participants of the study project mobility of the future 2020 for their excellent work on the survey. We would also like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that helped improve the manuscript. We also would like to thank Lennart Schott and Louis Knuepling for their feedback on the paper and Lukas Arndt for contributing to the cleaning of spatial data. Moreover, we would like to thank Klaus Geschwinder from Region Hannover for his support in distributing the survey.

PY - 2021/11

Y1 - 2021/11

N2 - The Covid 19 pandemic has caused dramatic disruptions in the public transport sector that has seen a stark downturn in many cities across the globe, calling into question previous efforts to reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions by expanding this sector. Especially, the current surge of individual car use is worrying and the question remains which users might be able and willing to substitute public transport by cycling. This effect is interesting to study for the case of Hanover Region, because of the well-developed biking infrastructure that makes biking a viable alternative to individual car use. In this paper, we analyze survey data from June 2020 on the use of transportation modes before and during the pandemic in the Hanover Region. We ask if and how the over 4.000 participants substitute public transport and what characterizes those who chose biking over individual car use. We use multivariate regression models and find evidence that Stadtbahn (local light rail) and bus are substituted by bike, car and working from home, while train use is not significantly replaced by car and seems to be positively related to bike use. The data also shows that women have a higher level of fear of infection than men have during public transport use and therefore reduce public transport use more. Moreover, income displays a positive effect on increased car use while cycling is independent of socio-economic indicators but instead driven by the eco-consciousness of users. Surprisingly, we find that car use was increased in particular by residents of Hanover city, while it was decreased by residents of less densely populated urban areas in the region.

AB - The Covid 19 pandemic has caused dramatic disruptions in the public transport sector that has seen a stark downturn in many cities across the globe, calling into question previous efforts to reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions by expanding this sector. Especially, the current surge of individual car use is worrying and the question remains which users might be able and willing to substitute public transport by cycling. This effect is interesting to study for the case of Hanover Region, because of the well-developed biking infrastructure that makes biking a viable alternative to individual car use. In this paper, we analyze survey data from June 2020 on the use of transportation modes before and during the pandemic in the Hanover Region. We ask if and how the over 4.000 participants substitute public transport and what characterizes those who chose biking over individual car use. We use multivariate regression models and find evidence that Stadtbahn (local light rail) and bus are substituted by bike, car and working from home, while train use is not significantly replaced by car and seems to be positively related to bike use. The data also shows that women have a higher level of fear of infection than men have during public transport use and therefore reduce public transport use more. Moreover, income displays a positive effect on increased car use while cycling is independent of socio-economic indicators but instead driven by the eco-consciousness of users. Surprisingly, we find that car use was increased in particular by residents of Hanover city, while it was decreased by residents of less densely populated urban areas in the region.

KW - Covid 19

KW - Public transport

KW - Spatial embeddedness

KW - Substitutability

KW - Transport disruption

KW - Travel behavior

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115634620&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.tra.2021.09.002

DO - 10.1016/j.tra.2021.09.002

M3 - Article

VL - 153

SP - 202

EP - 217

JO - Transportation Research, Part A: Policy and Practice

JF - Transportation Research, Part A: Policy and Practice

SN - 0965-8564

ER -