Analyzing Effects of The COVID-19 Pandemic on Road Traffic Safety: The Cases of New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston
This research addresses traffic safety changes for urban planners and policymakers during the pandemic, but it is incremental as it applies existing methods to new data.
The study analyzed how the COVID-19 pandemic affected road traffic safety in New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston, finding that traffic accidents shifted in location and time compared to previous years.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant social and economic impacts throughout the world. In addition to the health consequences, the impacts on traffic behaviors have also been sudden and dramatic. We have analyzed how the road traffic safety of New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston in the U.S. have been impacted by the pandemic and corresponding local government orders and restrictions. To be specific, we have studied the accident hotspots' distributions before and after the outbreak of the pandemic and found that traffic accidents have shifted in both location and time compared to previous years. In addition, we have studied the road network characteristics in those hotspot regions with the hope to understand the underlying cause of the hotspot shifts.