Research On The Impact Of COVID-19 On The Travel Behavior Of Private Car Owners

The COVID-19 has a huge impact on the travel of urban residents.Many scholars have studied the impact of pandemic on urban travel during the serious period of pandemic.At present,China has entered the post pandemic stage,and the existing research has the following aspects to be improved: 1)most of the studies have been made focus on the impact of the pandemic on the travel in the serious stage,and pay less attention to the impact of the pandemic on the travel in the post pandemic stage;2)compared with non-private car owners,private car owners have more choices of transportation modes when in travel,which are more affected by the pandemic.However,the current research does not directly concern the travel behavior of the private car owners.Based on the above background,this paper studies the change of travel behavior of private car owners before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19.Taking private car owners in Guangzhou,Shenzhen and other cities as the research objects,this paper uses RP &SP questionnaire survey data to study the impact of the COVID-19 on the travel behavior of private car owners.Considering that travelers’ travel behavior may be affected by travelers’ psychological factors,this study adds a psychological factor-"attitude towards the COVID-19" and based on the questionnaire survey data,we use confirmatory factor analysis to estimate the psychological factor.Taking the traveler’s psychological factor and socio-economic statistical characteristics as explanatory variables into the traditional discrete choice behavior model,this paper constructs an integration of choice and latent variable model,and studies the impact of the traveler’s socio-economic statistical characteristics,traveler’s psychological factors,pandemic development stage and other factors on the traveler’s travel behavior.The findings of this study show that age,occupation,attitude towards the COVID-19,and pandemic development stage have significant effects on the travel behavior of private car owners,such as whether they choose to commute by bus,whether they choose to take the bus when going out for a meeting,short distance travel mode choice,and the frequency of bus and subway use.In addition,compared with the severe period of the pandemic,the COVID-19 has eased the private car owners’ travel and use of public transport at the present stage,but has not yet been restored to the pre pandemic level.Psychological factor,namely attitude towards the COVID-19,the results of its measurement and the confirmatory factor analysis show that most of the private car owners are still worried about the current pandemic situation,and prefer to choose private travel mode such as cars or walk when traveling.Therefore,in the post pandemic stage,the recovery of urban public transport system can be considered from the perspective of improving its travel health and safety,by reducing travelers’ worries about public transport travel mode,so as to improve the travel proportion and operation level of public transport.