The Impact of COVID-19 on Transportation in Austin, Texas

Shivakumar, Bhooma Ustun Ilyas American Society of Civil Engineers; Shivakumar, B.; Ustun, I.

COVID-19 and resulting lockdowns have had a tremendous impact on our daily activities, and subsequently, the traffic on the roads. In this project, the authors analyze the effect that COVID-19 has had on driving behavior in Austin with respect to vehicle speed and traffic crashes. Data on were collected from the City of Austin open data portal. It was found that the crash count was significantly lower in 2020 in comparison to 2019. Even though there was significant drop in number of crashes, the death count increased close to 14% since 2019. Meanwhile, the average speed in Austin had increased during the pandemic and was higher in 2020 than in 2019. The largest increases in speed occurred during the morning from 7 to 9 a.m. and evening from 4 to 6 p.m. These changes in crash count and speed were observed to be the strongest with the onset of the lockdown and wane as the pandemic progressed.