Impacts of COVID-19 and anti-pandemic policies on urban transport—an empirical study in China

The COVID-19 pandemic that began in the last quarter of 2019 seriously impacted the transportation industry. Countries around the world adopted various restrictions and policies to prevent the spread of the pandemic, which resulted in a sharp drop in the demand for transportation. China was the first country to detect the pandemic and the fastest to recover. Existing policies and impacts were reviewed to analyze the impact of the pandemic on China's urban transportation sector and propose measures that may be taken to reduce the impact of COVID-19. This study reviews the impact on urban transportation system operations and how government should respond to a viral pandemic. The recovery measures during and after the pandemic and their hierarchical response system are analyzed. Furthermore, to empirically explore the effect of the recovery measures, this study adopted the Event Study Methodology (ESM) to quantitatively analyze the impact of the epidemic as well as anti-pandemic policies on the traffic flow sequence in the resurgence of COVID-19 in Beijing. The research findings provided solid policy implications and experiences for constructing sustainable urban transportation system and improve flexibility, reliability, and resilience of traffic governance in post-pandemic era.