Transport impacts in Germany and State of Qatar: An assessment during the first wave of COVID-19

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Response measures to contain COVID-19 spread varied from country to country, some imposed a complete lockdown while some imposed partial restrictions. This paper compares the transport impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for two countries having dissimilar characteristics, Germany and State of Qatar, based on the rates of infection and response measures. Secondary data, obtained from Google mobility reports, and primary data, collected from local agencies, were used for comparison purposes. The secondary data comparison from February 2020 to July 2020 indicated an overall decline in mobility for all commercial activities and an increase was noted for parks and residential locations for Saxony, Germany. For State of Qatar, the mobility was decreased to all places except residential locations. Further, the comparison for traffic volumes and the number of crashes during the first wave of the pandemic indicated that the reduction in traffic volumes, major, and minor crashes was coupled with restrictive measures rather than COVID-19 incidences for both countries. Further, the traffic volumes showed a statistically significant inverse linear relationship with the stringency index for both countries during weekdays as well as weekends. These results suggest that the policy measures are key in governing movement restrictions and containing the spread of pandemic rather than the number of COVID-19 incidences. Further, the authorities should monitor the traffic trends during the pandemic and enforce the traffic rules and regulations as soon as the movement restrictions are lifted.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number100540
JournalTransportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Volume13
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2022
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85122634060
ORCID /0000-0001-7662-132X/work/108378421
unpaywall 10.1016/j.trip.2022.100540
Mendeley cccbbe56-fda7-3c76-983e-4958b10c5476
PubMed 35036908

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

Keywords

  • COVID-19, Comparative analysis, Preventive measures, Stringency index, Traffic impacts, Traffic safety