Measuring Covid-19 effect on rail passenger flow with geographical region based trip generation models

Abstract

As the Covid-19 pandemic affects all human beings’ life in their daily routines, the transportation sector is one of the most effected services all around the World. To be able to measure the effect of pandemic on transportation, different instruments are used. In this study, trip generation modelling was performed first to understand what factors trigger trip making and how they affect rail passenger flow (RPF) in general and it is aimed to measure the loss in RPF due to Covid-19 pandemic with these trip generation models. 2011-2019 daily RPF data from station to station in Türkiye was used for trip generation models and 2016 rail passenger survey data was used for understanding geographical characteristics of the flow. It is seen that instead of one model covering the whole country, it is more suitable to form different models for specific regions. With region based trip generation models, the Covid-19 effect on RPF on the mainlines was measured for the year 2020. Modelled values were anticipated numbers for the no-pandemic condition, therefore by comparing the modelled and observed data, we could understand how Covid-19 affected the traffic.