Decrease of Taxi Ridership due to the Impact of COVID-19: A Case Study of New York City

The outbreak of COVID-19 has greatly impacted all industries of many countries in the world. As an important part of people's daily life, transportation is one of the most severely impacted industries. Taking New York City as an example, this paper explores the decline of taxi ridership due to the COVID-19. The decreased ratio of the actual taxi ridership to the taxi ridership predicted for the no COVID-19 scenario based on historical data is calculated as the dependent variable. The fractional response model is used to study the effect of built environment factors including demographic and socioeconomic, land use, and road-related on the decline of ridership. One model is constructed for each of the four periods, to explore the influence of influencing factors on the dependent variables in different periods. The model results show that the percentage of taxi trips decline is associated with the proportion of high-income people living in the area. The reason could be that these people have more flexible working hours and working places. They can choose to telecommute or travel by private cars to avoid contacting other people during transportation. The analysis of the other factors shows that industrial jobs are related to the low percentage of decline. The model results reveal to us the problem of equity exposed in New York City during the pandemic: limited by jobs(race/income), a portion of citizens are not fully free to choose their travel mode during the pandemic. According to the findings, this paper gives traffic management some policy suggestions. As a result, this study could provide an important reference for policymakers to develop appropriate measures to control the epidemic.