Imagining a post-COVID world
Exploring long term travel behavior changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its regional implications on urban mobility
L.P. Oirbans (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
Jan Annema – Mentor (TU Delft - Transport and Logistics)
Mark de Bruijne – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Organisation & Governance)
Bert van Wee – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Transport and Logistics)
M Snelder – Coach (TU Delft - Transport and Planning)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
This master thesis explores the potential influences of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel behavior change, and projects potential implications of long term travel behavior changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic on accessibility and the allocation of public space in the city of Amsterdam, the Netherlands for the year 2030. The first result of this thesis consists of the conceptualization of direct effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and policy measures on travel and activity patterns within a theoretical framework, based on travel behavior change theories. Reasoning from this framework it can be concluded that post-COVID-19 three general direct effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and policy measures on travel and activity patterns may be expected: (1) a shift from onsite to online work-related activities, (2) the respacing and retiming of work-related travel patterns and (3) a modal shift towards active modes of transport such as walking and cycling. The second result of this thesis are the creation of four exploratory post-COVID-19 travel behavior scenarios, based on participatory intuitive logic scenario planning methodology following an adaptation of the standard approach, including a novel scenario switchboard. The third and final result of this thesis are simulation results which project congestion rates and travel times by car, and the modal split within the city of Amsterdam in the year 2030 using a tour-based travel model. Based on the results as calculated within the travel model of the four post-COVID-19 travel behavior scenarios, it can be concluded that reduced work-related activities and its consequential changes to work-related travel patterns: (1) strongly alleviates congestion rates during the morning and evening rush hours, (2) decreases travel time from the city center of Amsterdam to certain other zones in Amsterdam with 1 to 2 minutes per person per trip, and (3) provides arguments to allocate more public space towards cycling infrastructure, especially within the district of Nieuw West.