An activity-based modeling approach to assess the effects of activity-travel behavior changes and in-home activities on mobility: Estimations based on different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Rotterdam-The Hague Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting corona crisis has had a profound impact on mobility in the Netherlands and in the entire world. This study aims at predicting, modeling, and analyzing changes in the activity-travel behavior of individuals in the Rotterdam-The Hague Metropolitan Area, the Netherlands, during different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and assess their effects on mobility. This is done by using the activity-based travel modeling approach. A modeling framework is developed and used for this study. The modeling framework provides an innovative approach to study the impacts of changes in activity-travel behavior caused by emergency situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic in a disaggregated manner. It combines the outputs of ABMs and a mix of aggregated and disaggregated data of changes in in-home and out-home activity frequencies and re-estimates the daily schedule of individuals considering factors and attributes that were not considered before, such as the weekly frequency at which agents do different activities and the sector where agents work. With the outcomes of the case study simulations, insights about the effects on mobility were identified and compared to real data counts and results of other studies. The conclusion is that the vast majority of the model outcomes proved to be in line with the results of other sources, and the modeling framework can be a useful tool to study the changes in activity-travel behavior of individuals during emergency situations and their effects on mobility.