1 News

14 December:

  • Most charts are now interactive. The effects of the winter weather are now clearly visible.

18 November:

  • Charts 2-6 are now interactive and zoomable.

2 November:

  • The method for the calculation of active days was improved, which affects some of the results.
  • New graph of average daily distance by trip purpose. link

6 October:

  • The chart showing the daily average distance by gender has been corrected to show total distance, whereas it previously included only car travel. Also the same graph now dispalys a 4 day rolling average for visibility. The original values are still available in the downloadable data.

Previous news (click to expand)

28 September:

  • New chart with key transport-mode indicators added. link

24 August:

  • Updated conclusions.
  • The report will now be updated every second week.

11 August:

  • New analysis of trip purpose (mode shares and hourly counts). link
  • Weekly weights of the sample against the original MOBIS study have been applied to all results. link

6 August:

13 July:

  • As of July 6th, face masks are compulsory on public transport in Switzerland.
  • To reflect this development, the relevant graphs have vertical lines added indicating the start of the lockdown (March 16th), relaxation of the lockdown (May 11th) and the introduction of the mask requirement (July 6th).

29 June:

  • New analysis on the shifts in the transport mode share - link

15 June:

  • The data can now be downloaded directly for certain requested charts. Please make sure to cite both the IVT, ETHZ and WWZ, Uni Basel as the source.
  • Hourly counts now show the whole day - Midnight to 4am is no longer excluded.
  • Analysis by home office - link.
  • In response to multiple inquiries, we would like to clarify that the baseline-2019 period covers September and October 2019.
  • Results by gender corrected
  • New analysis of car travel speeds by distance class - link.

25 May:

  • Adjusted # Activities/Day so that the first home activity per day is not included.
  • Converted long tables to graphs.

18 May:

  • First report after the relaxation of lockdown measures on May 11th.
  • The 2019 Baseline period has been shortened to only include September and October - This mostly affects the cycling numbers.

11 May:

  • New graph of activity space and daily radius - link.

4 May:

  • New chart from online survey with participants on risk perception - link.
  • Key points summary and formatting adjustments.

27 April:

  • New chart on the change in activity type by land zoning.

20 April:

  • Mobile participants per day.
  • Non-mobile participants are now included in the activity-space numbers in addition to a new table on median weekly activity spaces.
  • New graphs, including average trip distance by mode.
  • Formatting improvements and other small corrections.

13 April:

  • Earlier weeks have been grouped and colored grey in certain graphs.

2 Introduction

On March 16, 2020, 3700 participants who completed the MOBIS study between September 2019 and January 2020 were invited to reinstall the GPS Logger and Travel Diary App ‘Catch-My-Day’, developed by MotionTag, to record their mobility behaviour during the period of special measures implemented to control the spread of the Corona Virus. The first 4 weeks of mobility data from the original MOBIS Study is taken for each participant as a baseline against which to compare current mobility patterns. These 4 weeks start place anywhere between 1st September and 15th November, depending on the participant. Only trips in Switzerland are currently considered, although data on cross border travel is available.

A running panel of around 250 participants were already tracking before the sample was reinvited. This allows results for the weeks before the MOBIS:COVID-19 study was officially started, although the sample size is a lot smaller, and hence the results.

In the MOBIS study, participants were only eligible if they used a car at least 3 days a week - which skews the sample away from the Swiss general population.

The number of tracking participants each day used to calculate the average daily values includes all participants who recorded tracks before or after that date. This allows the consideration of those who stay at home while still allowing for survey dropouts.

The GPS Travel diary used, Catch-My-Day (for iOS and Android) can have a 2-3 day delay before the tracks are available for analysis. The scaling by active participants accomodates for this, but the results of previous reports may change when the report is updated.

3 Average daily distance

[1] “Download chart data”

4 Active days

[1] “Download chart data”

5 Change in kilometers travelled by transport mode

[1] “Download chart data”

[1] “Download chart data”

6 Key indicators by mode

[1] “Download chart data”

7 Change in kilometers travelled by…

8 Analysis of trip purpose

[1] “Download chart data”

[1] “Download chart data”

9 Road travel speeds

The following graph shows the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on median car travel speeds during the week, i.e. excluding weekends and holidays. During the lockdown period from March 16th to May 11th, an increase in the peak-hour speeds was observed, indicating a decrease in overall congestion. Since the relaxation of the measures, peak-hour speeds have returned to pre-COVID-19 values, a sign that congestion is back to usual levels.

[1] “Download chart data”

10 Shifts in the transport mode share

A ternary plot is the graphical representation of triplets of numerical data. It is suitable for representing a constant sum, which is broken down into three summands. The following figure shows an example of such a plot with a single point. The triplet corresponding to this point can be read by following the green lines: A=0.5, B=0.3 and C=0.2. The sum of the three values is equal to 1.

The following ternary plots show the change in mode shares over the course of the COVID-19 crisis, for different types of public transport subscriptions (GA, Halbtax and other). The modes are grouped into the following categories:

  • Motorized individual transport (car, motorbike, taxi, Uber)
  • Public transport (bus, tram, ferry, metro, train)
  • Unmotorized transport (walk, bike)

During the lockdown, a higher share of kilometers and trips were performed using motorized individual and unmotorized modes as compared to the reference period. After the lockdown, the share of public transport has increased and the share unmotorized modes has decreased, both slightly. The share of motorized individual modes it still greater than during the reference period.

11 Reduction in kilometers travelled by working arrangement

Participants in MOBIS-Covid19 were asked to report their working status on 24/4/2020. The following charts use these results, with the working status imputed using sociodemographic indicators for those who didn’t respond. Specifically, we asked for the number of days working both at home and out of home, and these were then grouped into the categories used below:

  • Working only at home
  • Only working out of home
  • A mix of home office and normal conditions

[1] “Download chart data (Work location)”

[1] “Download chart data (Kurzarbeit)”

12 Reduction in kilometers travelled by canton

[1] “Download chart data”

13 Trip duration by transport mode and gender

[1] “Download chart data”

14 Average stage length by transport mode (km)

[1] “Download chart data”

15 Activity space and daily travel radius

A commonly used definition of the activity space is the 95% confidence ellipse of the activity locations, in this case weighted by duration. In the following analysis, the activities at the home location are included, for those that had the app activated on that day. This is an important metric which gives an idea of the area in which travel is being performed. The daily travel radius is also presented.

[1] “Download chart data”

16 Hourly counts

The number of trips started per hour. The y axis is normalized by the maximum hourly value in the graph.

[1] “Download chart data (total)”

[1] “Download chart data (by transport mode)”