Impact of Covid-19 on motorized transport modes in Tehran: competition or complementarity?

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on people's travel behaviour and their perception of various transportation modes. This paper presents the results of two cross-sectional surveys conducted in Tehran, Iran, during and after the pandemic. Multivariate ordered logit modelling is used to identify factors that influence usage and to explore their interrelationships by analysing correlations among the utility of the ordered frequency of use of the private car, public transportation, ride-hailing and collective line taxi. Socioeconomic characteristics contribute significantly. Low-income individuals were more likely to use public transport during the pandemic, whereas university students and private sector employees were more prone to use ride-hailing. Women tended to use ride-hailing more, especially in the post-pandemic period. The findings suggest that while, on the whole, usage has increased for all modes in the post-pandemic period, in terms of commuting modal share, metro has gained substantially and private car has lost. Ride-hailing proved highly resilient in Tehran's mobility landscape. Correlation analysis indicated a clear contrast between private cars and public transport/collective line taxis, which is further heightened in the post-pandemic period. Although ride-hailing complements both public transport and collective line taxis, it does not exhibit meaningful correlations with the private car.