Flow of goods to the shock of COVID-19 and toll-free highway policy: Evidence from logistics data in China

Using high-frequency logistics data from China, this paper quantitatively examines the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on logistics. Meanwhile, our research focuses on the toll-free highway policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, analyzing the promoting effect of this policy on road freight in China. Three main conclusions are drawn from the study. Firstly, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an average daily drop of 0.67% in road freight volume and an increase of 0.48% in logistic cost compared to the pre-pandemic period. Secondly, the toll-free highway policy had a significant offset effect of pandemic on freight volume and price, stimulating the resumption of work and production. However, the dynamic effect shows that the toll-free highway policy is only temporarily effective rather than the long term. Thirdly, the effectiveness of the toll-free highway policy is moderated by the severity of the epidemic and the transportation distance. This paper contributes to research on economy recovery and transportation policy under the COVID-19 pandemic shock.