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Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?

This paper provides the first evidence of the causal effect of COVID-19 on metro use using real-time data from the Taipei Metro System in Taiwan. In contrast to other cities or countries, Taiwan did not enforce strict social lockdowns or mandatory stay-at-home orders to combat COVID-19. The major pr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Chang, Hung-Hao, Lee, Brian, Yang, Feng-An, Liou, Yu-You
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7798434/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33456211
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2021.102954
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author Chang, Hung-Hao
Lee, Brian
Yang, Feng-An
Liou, Yu-You
author_facet Chang, Hung-Hao
Lee, Brian
Yang, Feng-An
Liou, Yu-You
author_sort Chang, Hung-Hao
collection PubMed
description This paper provides the first evidence of the causal effect of COVID-19 on metro use using real-time data from the Taipei Metro System in Taiwan. In contrast to other cities or countries, Taiwan did not enforce strict social lockdowns or mandatory stay-at-home orders to combat COVID-19. The major prevention strategies to the pandemic in Taiwan include promoting social distancing, mandating the wearing of face masks in public areas, and requiring all international arrivals to quarantine for 14 days. Using administrative data on confirmed cases of COVID-19 and ridership from metro stations with the difference-in-differences model, we find that an additional new confirmed case of COVID-19 reduces metro use by 1.43% after controlling for local socio-demographic variables associated with ridership and the number of international arrivals to Taiwan. This result implies that the reduction in metro trips is attributable to decreases in residents' use of public transportation due to perceived health risks. Furthermore, the effect of COVID-19 on metro use disproportionally impacts stations with different characteristics. The effect is more pronounced for metro stations connected to night markets, shopping centers, or colleges. Although decreases in metro ridership lower the revenue of the Taipei Metro System, our results indicate a tradeoff between increased financial burdens of public transportation systems and reducing medical expenses associated with COVID-19.
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spelling pubmed-77984342021-01-12 Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei? Chang, Hung-Hao Lee, Brian Yang, Feng-An Liou, Yu-You J Transp Geogr Article This paper provides the first evidence of the causal effect of COVID-19 on metro use using real-time data from the Taipei Metro System in Taiwan. In contrast to other cities or countries, Taiwan did not enforce strict social lockdowns or mandatory stay-at-home orders to combat COVID-19. The major prevention strategies to the pandemic in Taiwan include promoting social distancing, mandating the wearing of face masks in public areas, and requiring all international arrivals to quarantine for 14 days. Using administrative data on confirmed cases of COVID-19 and ridership from metro stations with the difference-in-differences model, we find that an additional new confirmed case of COVID-19 reduces metro use by 1.43% after controlling for local socio-demographic variables associated with ridership and the number of international arrivals to Taiwan. This result implies that the reduction in metro trips is attributable to decreases in residents' use of public transportation due to perceived health risks. Furthermore, the effect of COVID-19 on metro use disproportionally impacts stations with different characteristics. The effect is more pronounced for metro stations connected to night markets, shopping centers, or colleges. Although decreases in metro ridership lower the revenue of the Taipei Metro System, our results indicate a tradeoff between increased financial burdens of public transportation systems and reducing medical expenses associated with COVID-19. Elsevier Ltd. 2021-02 2021-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7798434/ /pubmed/33456211 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2021.102954 Text en © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Chang, Hung-Hao
Lee, Brian
Yang, Feng-An
Liou, Yu-You
Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?
title Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?
title_full Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?
title_fullStr Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?
title_full_unstemmed Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?
title_short Does COVID-19 affect metro use in Taipei?
title_sort does covid-19 affect metro use in taipei?
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7798434/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33456211
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2021.102954
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