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Patrick Loa and Sk Md Mashrur: “Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Travel Behaviour and Demand in the GTHA”
October 23, 2020 @ 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
This week’s UT-ITE seminar features presentations by two University of Toronto PhD students, Patrick Loa and Sk Md Mashrur.
Title: “A survey-based study into the impacts of COVID-19 on the use of ride-sourcing services in the GTA.”
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, ride-sourcing services (such as those offered by Uber and Lyft) were re-shaping the urban mobility paradigm. In addition to competing with existing modes of travel, ride-sourcing has also been found to induce additional travel demand and provide its users with the opportunity to change where and when they travel.
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused many to re-examine and alter aspects their travel behaviour, including when, where, and how they travel. Early research into these changes had found that, among other things, people have reduced their use of ride-hailing services. Given the impact that ride-sourcing has already had on urban mobility, it is important to understand the impacts of COVID-19 on the use of ride-sourcing, both in the short-term and the long-term.
This study presents the preliminary findings of a web-based survey that aimed to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on ride-sourcing use in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Because of the novelty of the COVID-19 situation, as well as the uncertainty surrounding it, the influence of attitudinal and perceptual factors one the impact that COVID-19 has had on ride-sourcing usage. This study also applied econometric models to determine the factors that influence the willingness to use ride-sourcing.
Patrick Loa is a PhD student in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Professor Khandker Nurul Habib. His research primarily focuses on travel demand modelling and the study of the impacts of emerging modes of mobility. Patrick obtained both his MASc and BASc at the University of Toronto.
Title: “Assessment and measurements of the factors influencing the choice of using transit during the COVID-19 recovery period and post COVID-19 era.”
Transit in Toronto is undergoing infrequent challenges due to the drastic fall in transit demand since the outbreak of the corona virus pandemic. Moreover, the extent to which such an unprecedented event will affect the habitual transit riders’ travel behaviour, in the long run, is yet to be discovered. Currently, the pressing question for both the transit agencies and travel demand modellers is: Will the fear of disease transmission lead to the beginning of the end of public transit?
To answer this question, a choice-based Stated Preference Experiment on Travel mode and specially Transit choice behaviour (SPETT) will be conducted in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) to investigate the unrevealed key attributes of the commuter’s travel decisions in making transit trips in future. The SPETT study will contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the pandemic on transit ridership and route choice decisions at present as well as at distinct phases of the pandemic in upcoming days. The SPETT will be based on an online survey. The participants of the survey will be asked to provide their preferences regarding hypothetical situations representing different phases of the pandemic. Advanced econometric models will use survey data to quantify the impact of influential attributes on future transit trip decisions.
Sk. Md. Mashrur is a PhD student in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto. He earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. His research interest is transit demand modelling, and he is currently working on integrated activity-based demand and dynamic transit assignment framework for his PhD under the supervision of Professor Khandker Nurul Habib.
Online via Bb Collaborate: https://ca.bbcollab.com/guest/7ce092e2a4e249369f77a7cf97e69827
Presented by University of Toronto ITE Student Chapter, UT-ITE. All welcome.