Data-driven analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on Madrid's public transport during each phase of the pandemic

• Published in: Cities 2022-08, Vol.127, p.103723-103723, Article 103723
• Main Authors: Fernández Pozo, Rubén, Wilby, Mark Richard, Vinagre Díaz, Juan José, Rodríguez González, Ana Belén
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavior change; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Data; De-escalation; Escalation; Low income groups; Madrid; Pandemics; Public transport; Public transportation; Ridership; Ticket validations
• ISSN: 0264-2751; 1873-6084; 0264-2751
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2022.103723

COVID-19 has become a major global issue with large social-economic and health impacts, which led to important changes in people's behavior. One of these changes affected the way people use public transport. In this work we present a data-driven analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on public transport demand in the Community of Madrid, Spain, using data from ticket validations between February and September 2020. This period of time covers all stages of pandemic in Spain, including de-escalation phases. We find that ridership has dramatically decreased by 95% at the pandemic peak, recovering very slowly and reaching only half its pre-pandemic levels at the end of September. We analyze results for different transport modes, ticket types, and groups of users. Our work corroborates that low-income groups are the most reliant on public transportation, thus observing significantly lower decreases in their ridership during pandemic. This paper also shows different average daily patterns of public transit demand during each phase of the pandemic in Madrid. All these findings provide relevant information for transit agencies to design responses to an emergence situation like this pandemic, contributing to extend the global knowledge about COVID-19 impact on transport comparing results with other cities worldwide. •A data-driven analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on public transport demand in the Community of Madrid (Spain) is presented.•Results for different transport modes, ticket types, and groups of users are presented, covering all stages of pandemic.•Ridership has decreased by 95 % at the pandemic peak, recovering very slowly and reaching only half its pre-pandemic level.•Low-income groups are the most reliant on public transportation, observing significantly lower ridership decreases.