IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v173y2023ics0965856423001386.html

A multiple mediation analysis to untangle the impacts of COVID-19 on nationwide bus ridership in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Ziedan, Abubakr
  • Lima, Luiz
  • Brakewood, Candace

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in major consequences for many aspects of human life and the broader economy. Many transportation modes were severely impacted, including public transportation. During the early months of the pandemic in 2020, transit ridership dropped to unprecedented levels. Even by the end of 2022, bus ridership in the United States had not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Despite the longstanding effects on public transportation, the direct and indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on bus ridership are largely unknown. In the context of this study, the direct impact refers to a change in travel behavior (i.e., due to the increased spread of COVID-19), while the indirect impact refers to reduced ridership due to factors such as lower employment or increased teleworking. This study proposes a framework to explore the drivers of transit ridership declines during COVID-19. The method is a multiple mediation analysis to estimate the monthly direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 on bus ridership from March 2020 to December 2021. The results of this study revealed that three mediators (employment, telework, and people relocating) mediated about 13% to 38% of the total decline in bus ridership during the analysis period. The multiple mediation approach used in this study could be applied in many other transportation applications.

Suggested Citation

  • Ziedan, Abubakr & Lima, Luiz & Brakewood, Candace, 2023. "A multiple mediation analysis to untangle the impacts of COVID-19 on nationwide bus ridership in the United States," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:173:y:2023:i:c:s0965856423001386
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2023.103718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856423001386
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2023.103718?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donghwy An & Bo‐ram Jeong & Nara Youn, 2022. "Effects of art consumption on consumer well‐being," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 685-702, June.
    2. ., 2022. "Income Effects and the ETI," Chapters, in: The Elasticity of Taxable Income, chapter 9, pages 199-220, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. de Boer, Henk-Wim & Jongen, Egbert L.W. & Kabatek, Jan, 2022. "The effectiveness of fiscal stimuli for working parents," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    4. Oecd, 2022. "Enhancing online disclosure effectiveness," OECD Digital Economy Papers 335, OECD Publishing.
    5. Alfonso Orro & Margarita Novales & Ángel Monteagudo & José-Benito Pérez-López & Miguel R. Bugarín, 2020. "Impact on City Bus Transit Services of the COVID–19 Lockdown and Return to the New Normal: The Case of A Coruña (Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-30, September.
    6. Boisjoly, Geneviève & Grisé, Emily & Maguire, Meadhbh & Veillette, Marie-Pier & Deboosere, Robbin & Berrebi, Emma & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2018. "Invest in the ride: A 14 year longitudinal analysis of the determinants of public transport ridership in 25 North American cities," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 434-445.
    7. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.
    8. Berrebi, Simon J. & Joshi, Sanskruti & Watkins, Kari E., 2021. "On bus ridership and frequency," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 140-154.
    9. Konstantinos Gkiotsalitis & Oded Cats, 2021. "Public transport planning adaption under the COVID-19 pandemic crisis: literature review of research needs and directions," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(3), pages 374-392, May.
    10. Campbell, Kayleigh B. & Brakewood, Candace, 2017. "Sharing riders: How bikesharing impacts bus ridership in New York City," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 264-282.
    11. Chen, Ruyin & Xiong, Yue & Li, Zekun & He, Zhifen & Hou, Fang & Zhou, Jiawei, 2022. "Effects of correlated noises on binocular rivalry," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    12. Xin, Mengwei & Shalaby, Amer & Feng, Shumin & Zhao, Hu, 2021. "Impacts of COVID-19 on urban rail transit ridership using the Synthetic Control Method," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-16.
    13. Lee, Yongsung & Lee, Bumsoo, 2022. "What’s eating public transit in the United States? Reasons for declining transit ridership in the 2010s," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 126-143.
    14. Luyu Liu & Harvey J Miller & Jonathan Scheff, 2020. "The impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on public transit demand in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.
    15. Erhardt, Gregory D. & Hoque, Jawad Mahmud & Goyal, Vedant & Berrebi, Simon & Brakewood, Candace & Watkins, Kari E., 2022. "Why has public transit ridership declined in the United States?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 68-87.
    16. Jiang, Shixiong & Cai, Canhuang, 2022. "Unraveling the dynamic impacts of COVID-19 on metro ridership: An empirical analysis of Beijing and Shanghai, China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 158-170.
    17. Wang, Haoyun & Noland, Robert B., 2021. "Bikeshare and subway ridership changes during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 262-270.
    18. Pan, Zheng & Lien, Donald & Wang, Hao, 2022. "Peer effects and shadow education," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    19. Stephan D. Whitaker, 2021. "Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Cause an Urban Exodus?," Cleveland Fed District Data Brief 89783, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    20. Ding, Chuan & Cao, Xinyu & Liu, Chao, 2019. "How does the station-area built environment influence Metrorail ridership? Using gradient boosting decision trees to identify non-linear thresholds," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 70-78.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarker, Rumana & Currie, Graham & Reynolds, James, 2025. "The pandemic is over but riders still fear infection − An extended behavioural model explaining post-pandemic transit avoidance related to perceived infection fear," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    2. Smith, Bonny V. & Robbennolt, Dale & Bhat, Chandra R., 2025. "An evaluation of the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public transit use in the United States," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 90-100.
    3. Lyons, Torrey & Ewing, Reid & Tian, Guang, 2025. "Coverage vs frequency: Is spatial coverage or temporal frequency more impactful on transit ridership?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    4. Srinivasan, Sumeeta & Shamsuddin, Shomon & Cheng, Justina, 2025. "Bus ridership retention, place-based factors, and COVID-19 in the Boston area," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    5. Asgharpour, Sina & Askari, Sajad & Mohammadian, Abolfazl (Kouros), 2025. "Dependence or preference? Navigating public transit loyalty across heterogeneous levels of transit dependence," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 821-837.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yu, Chengcheng & Dong, Wentao & Liu, Yunhao & Yang, Chao & Yuan, Quan, 2024. "Rethinking bus ridership dynamics: Examining nonlinear effects of determinants on bus ridership changes using city-level panel data from 2010 to 2019," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 85-100.
    2. Erhardt, Gregory D. & Hoque, Jawad Mahmud & Goyal, Vedant & Berrebi, Simon & Brakewood, Candace & Watkins, Kari E., 2022. "Why has public transit ridership declined in the United States?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 68-87.
    3. Jiang, Shixiong & Cai, Canhuang, 2022. "Unraveling the dynamic impacts of COVID-19 on metro ridership: An empirical analysis of Beijing and Shanghai, China," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 158-170.
    4. Schouten, Andrew & Kawano, Yoh, 2024. "COVID-19 and the demand for transit access: Residential real estate prices in the Tokyo metropolitan area," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    5. Soria, Jason & Edward, Deirdre & Stathopoulos, Amanda, 2023. "Requiem for transit ridership? An examination of who abandoned, who will return, and who will ride more with mobility as a service," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 139-154.
    6. Pezeshknejad, Parsa & Palm, Matthew & Rowangould, Dana, 2025. "Public transit in transition: The “new normal” or a return to normal?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 1076-1089.
    7. Lyons, Torrey & Ewing, Reid & Tian, Guang, 2025. "Coverage vs frequency: Is spatial coverage or temporal frequency more impactful on transit ridership?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    8. Lee, Yongsung & Lee, Bumsoo, 2022. "What’s eating public transit in the United States? Reasons for declining transit ridership in the 2010s," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 126-143.
    9. Xin, Mengwei & Shalaby, Amer & Feng, Shumin & Zhao, Hu, 2021. "Impacts of COVID-19 on urban rail transit ridership using the Synthetic Control Method," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-16.
    10. repec:osf:osfxxx:xrk2p_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Srinivasan, Sumeeta & Shamsuddin, Shomon & Cheng, Justina, 2025. "Bus ridership retention, place-based factors, and COVID-19 in the Boston area," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    12. Patni, Sagar & Srinivasan, Sivaramakrishnan & Suarez, Juan, 2023. "The impact of COVID-19 on route-level changes in transit demand an analysis of five transit agencies in Florida, USA," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    13. Handy, Susan L & Volker, Jamey M. B. & Hosseinzade, Reyhane, 2024. "Assessing the Effectiveness of Potential Vehicle-Miles-Traveled (VMT) Mitigation Measures," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt1pf307sp, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    14. Bian, Jiahe & Li, Wei & Lee, Chanam, 2025. "Can transit apps boost ridership? An empirical study in San Antonio, Texas," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    15. Wasserman, Jacob L. & Taylor, Brian D., 2023. "State of the BART: Analyzing the Determinants of Bay Area Rapid Transit Use in the 2010s," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    16. Ziedan, Abubakr & Darling, Wesley & Brakewood, Candace & Erhardt, Greg & Watkins, Kari, 2021. "The impacts of shared e-scooters on bus ridership," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 20-34.
    17. Wang, Xiaohan & Chen, Xiqun (Michael) & Xie, Chi & Cheong, Taesu, 2024. "Coordinative dispatching of shared and public transportation under passenger flow outburst," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    18. Diab, Ehab & Kasraian, Dena & Miller, Eric J. & Shalaby, Amer, 2020. "The rise and fall of transit ridership across Canada: Understanding the determinants," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 101-112.
    19. Asgharpour, Sina & Askari, Sajad & Mohammadian, Abolfazl (Kouros), 2025. "Who stays loyal to transit? Understanding preference-based heterogeneity in service satisfaction," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    20. Khatun, Farzana & Saphores, Jean-Daniel, 2023. "Covid-19, intentions to change modes, and how they materialized - Results from a random survey of Californians," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    21. Gao, Fan & Yang, Linchuan & Han, Chunyang & Tang, Jinjun & Li, Zhitao, 2022. "A network-distance-based geographically weighted regression model to examine spatiotemporal effects of station-level built environments on metro ridership," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:173:y:2023:i:c:s0965856423001386. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.