Impact of physical distancing due to novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) on daily travel for work during transition to lockdown

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in change in both commute and personal travel patterns. Though, in India, lockdown was implemented from 25th March 2020, due to self-awareness and pandemic risk perception, change in commuter behavior was observed from the beginning of March 2020. The period from 15th to 24th March 2020 is considered as the transition phase of COVID-19 outbreak in India (i.e., between no lockdown and lockdown period). This study attempts to use a decision tree approach to investigate the modal preference of 1542 commuters in association with socio-economic and travel characteristics, and safety perceptions with respect to public and private modes during transition to lockdown due to COVID-19 in India. About 41% of commuters stopped traveling during the transition to lockdown phase, 51.3% were using the same mode of transport and 5.3% of commuters shifted from public to private mode. The study findings reported different interactions of factors influencing the decision to use public or private modes of transport for daily commuting during pandemic situations like COVID-19. Interestingly, safety perceptions (associated with personal health) of commuters did not play a significant role in their mode choice behavior during the transition phase. Though people perceived public transportation as unsafe over personal vehicle use, the actual commute patterns did not validate this due to a possible reason that commuters do not have enough alternative modes. Given the uncertainties in the decision making of the commuters regarding their travel behavior due to physical distancing, the insights from this study are important to policymakers and local transport authorities to understand the change in travel patterns.