The outbreak of COVID-19 caused unprecedented declines in public-transport use. As travel frequencies rebound, ridership is recovering, although it remains considerably below pre-pandemic levels. This study compares pre- to post-pandemic public-transit use among workers and non-workers, and the changing impact of local and regional accessibility. Additionally, we assess the impact of increased telecommuting on workers’ transit use before, during, and after the pandemic. We estimate two weighted multilevel linear regressions using a three-wave panel survey over the years 2019–2022 in Montréal, Canada. Results indicate that the factors that determine workers’ and non-workers’ transit patterns have tended to diverge after the pandemic. For workers, the relevance of accessibility in promoting utilitarian transit use considerably decreased, being responsible for close to 10% of the post-pandemic transit-use reduction. The increase of telecommuting frequency due to the pandemic contributed more than 10% of the post-pandemic transit-use reduction, but the effect of transit commuting time has remained relevant. For non-workers, the effect of regional accessibility by transit has increased after the pandemic, which has partly mitigated non-workers’ transit-use decline. Moreover, we find there is a joint effect of local and regional accessibility that has maintained after 2019 for non-workers. Results from this work have relevant implications for transit planners and policymakers. To help transit-use recovery, results suggest that providing good transit connection to the workplace promotes workers’ transit use, while promoting transit accessibility in lower-local-accessibility areas is key for non-worker transit ridership.

中文翻译：

---

为什么人们离开公共交通工具？关于加拿大蒙特利尔 2019 年、2021 年和 2022 年交通使用模式变化的小组研究

COVID-19 的爆发导致公共交通使用量出现前所未有的下降。随着出行频率回升，客流量正在恢复，但仍远低于大流行前的水平。本研究比较了大流行前和大流行后工人和非工人的公共交通使用情况，以及当地和区域可达性的变化影响。此外，我们还评估了疫情爆发之前、期间和之后远程办公增加对员工交通使用的影响。我们利用 2019 年至 2022 年加拿大蒙特利尔的三波面板调查估算了两个加权多级线性回归。结果表明，决定工人和非工人交通模式的因素在大流行之后往往出现分歧。对于工人来说，无障碍环境在促进实用性交通使用方面的相关性大大下降，导致大流行后交通使用减少了近 10%。疫情导致的远程办公频率增加对疫情后公共交通使用量减少的贡献超过10%，但公共交通通勤时间的影响仍然存在。对于非工人来说，大流行后区域交通可达性的影响有所增加，这在一定程度上缓解了非工人交通使用率的下降。此外，我们发现，对于非工人来说，地方和区域可达性的联合效应在 2019 年之后一直保持着。这项工作的结果对交通规划者和政策制定者具有相关意义。为了帮助恢复交通使用，研究结果表明，提供与工作场所良好的交通连接可以促进工人的交通使用，而促进当地交通不便地区的交通可达性是非工人交通出行的关键。