IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/46hzd.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Commuting behaviours and COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Harrington, Deirdre
  • Hadjiconstantinou, Michelle

Abstract

The UK Government restrictions on non-essential work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that millions of working aged-adults were forced into an unplanned change of lifestyle. We aim to present data on changes in planned commuting behaviour of public transport and car commuters and to describe the facilitators and barriers to switching commuting behaviours, with a specific focus on cycling and walking. An online survey queried individuals’ transport mode to/from work before becoming aware of the COVID-19 threat and their transport mode plans once UK Government restrictions are lifted. Free-form text responses were also collected on why they may switch to a sustainable mode of transport (e.g. walk, bicycle or bus) to work in the future and what would help/allow them to achieve this. Quantitative and qualitative data on those who commuted by car (single occupant) and public transport (bus/rail/park & ride) were analysed and presented separately. Overall, 725 car and public transport commuters responded; 72.4% were car commuters and 27.6% were public transport commuters before COVID-19. Of the car commuters, 81.9% plan to continue travelling by car once restrictions are lifted while 3.6% and 6.5% plan to change to walking and cycling, respectively. Of the public transport commuters, 49.0% plan to switch modes. From the free-form text responses three themes were identified: (a) perceived behavioural control towards cycling and walking (infrastructure and safety of roads, distance, weather) (b) key motivators to encourage a switch to cycling and walking (provision to support cycling, personal and environmental benefits, provision to support cycling); (c) the demands of current lifestyle (job requirements, family and lifestyle commitments). These UK data show how the COVID-19 pandemic has been an “external shock” causing some individuals to reassess their commuting mode. This provides an opportunity for theory-based behaviour change interventions tackling motivations, barriers and beliefs towards changing commute mode.

Suggested Citation

  • Harrington, Deirdre & Hadjiconstantinou, Michelle, 2020. "Commuting behaviours and COVID-19," OSF Preprints 46hzd, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:46hzd
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/46hzd
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5f280a969c909401974851f3/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/46hzd?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Anna E. Wolnowska & Lech Kasyk, 2021. "Ways Residents of Large Cities in Poland, Commute before and during the Covid-19 Pandemic," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3B), pages 749-768.
    2. Mohammadjavad Javadinasr & Tassio B. Magassy & Ehsan Rahimi & Motahare & Mohammadi & Amir Davatgari & Abolfazl & Mohammadian & Deborah Salon & Matthew Wigginton Bhagat-Conway & Rishabh Singh Chauhan &, 2021. "The Enduring Effects of COVID-19 on Travel Behavior in the United States: A Panel Study on Observed and Expected Changes in Telecommuting, Mode Choice, Online Shopping and Air Travel," Papers 2109.07988, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:osf:osfxxx:46hzd. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    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.