Decline in mobility: Public transport in Poland in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to assess changes in mobility in public transport in Poland, as a consequence of the development of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyse the problem from the country and regional (voivodeships) perspective. The data come from Google COVID19 Community Mobility Reports, the Ministry of Health of Poland, and the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. The research covers the period between 2 March and 19 July 2020. The obtained results show that there is negative but insignificant relationship between human mobility changes in public transport and the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Poland. The strength and statistical significance of the correlation varies substantially across voivodeships. As far as the relationship between changes in mobility in public transport and the stringency of Polish government's anti-COVID-19 policy is concerned, the results confirm a strong, negative and significant correlation between analysed variables at the national and regional level. Moreover, based on one factor variance analysis (ANOVA) and the Tukey's honest significance test (Tukey's HSD test) we indicate that there are significant differences observed regarding the changes in mobility in public transport depending on the level of stringency of anti-COVID-19 regulation policy both in Poland and all voivodeships. The results might indicate that the forced lockdown to contain the development of the COVID-19 pandemic has effectively contributed to social distancing in public transport in Poland and that government restrictions, rather than a local epidemic status, induce a greater decrease in mobility.