COVID-19 Impact: 48% people stopped travelling to work by third week of March, says IIT Study

About 40 per cent of people said they did not travel to work in the third week of March, as per a survey done by researchers of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad and IIT-Bombay.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and IIT Hyderabad researchers has done a study on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on daily commuters during the transition phase between pre-lockdown and lockdown period.

As per the study, it was found that about 48 per cent of commuters had stopped travelling to the office or for work by the third week of March. There is about 28 per cent of commuters who however had continued to travel at their normal frequency. Over 40 per cent of people had to cancel their flight and train journeys due to coronavirus lockdown. 

Around 93 per cent believes that commuting through the private vehicle is much safer as compared to mass public transit options. In tier-1 cities, about 2 per cent of commuters had switched to private transport, the study stated.

Digvijay Pawar, assistant professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, who has done the study on 'Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on work trips during the transition to lockdown period' along with other researchers said that this research will help policymakers and local transport authorities to understand the changes in travel pattern during the lockdown period.

The study will help the researchers to understand the commuters decision while selecting their preferred mode of transport during a pandemic like COVID-19, he said.

The study has analyzed the change in daily commute and visit behaviour, during the third week of the coronavirus outbreak in the country and during the pre-lockdown period. Over 1,900 people participated in the study and had answered an online questionnaire. The researchers had found that around 12 per cent of the commuters living in tier-1 cities had switched to private transport by the third week of the outbreak.

However, in tie-2 and tier-3 cities, less than 10 per cent of the commuters switched to the private vehicle during the same period. 

These statistics indicated that awareness about COVID-19 is comparatively higher in Tier-1 cities, followed by Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.

The research team includes Digvijay S. Pawar and Pritha Chatterjee, both assistant professors in the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, and Nagendra Velaga and research student Ankit Kumar Yadav from the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay.