Pattern analysis of Japanese long-distance travel change under the COVID-19 pandemic

The Japanese government implemented a request for people to reduce movement to suppress the spatial spread of COVID-19. Individuals cancelled relatively unimportant activities according to their perceived risk of infection and the changing level of the request because it carried no penalties. Thus, what long-distance travel patterns were reduced in response to these messages and the situation? Mobile phone location data is a powerful tool to answer the question. However, mobile phone location data has a major disadvantage that it does not include information regarding the purpose of travel such as business or leisure. Therefore, this study proposes an approach that uses other survey data regarding travel purpose information in addition to mobile phone location data to analyze the effects of COVID-19 on long-distance travel behavior. In our approach, information regarding a large number of origin–destination pairs is explained by a small number of representative travel patterns that are explicitly related to travel purpose. The results of this approach show that travel behavioral changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic differed for each travel pattern. Certain patterns were highly sensitive, and many people cancelled unimportant activities for a period longer than the government’s request period. In contrast, sensitivity was relatively low for short-distance travel.