Travel Behavior of Paratransit Users Pre-, Peak, and Post-COVID-19 Pandemic: Exploring Contributing Factors and Implications

The COVID-19 pandemic posed unique mobility challenges to vulnerable populations, including older adults and people with disabilities. This study explores the COVID-19 impact on paratransit ridership using data from Handitran, a service in Arlington, Texas, as a case study. The study utilizes 334,098 Handitran trip records from January 2019 to December 2021 to include the entire span of pre-, peak- and post-COVID-19 phases. The objective is to investigate changes in ridership and trip patterns during the pandemic and to understand the impact of time-varying disruption factors such as COVID-19-related policies, vaccinations and case counts, and sociodemographic factors. The study develops seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average with exogenous factors (SARIMAX) models and Poisson models to identify the most critical contributing factors impacting paratransit demand during the pandemic. Temporal analysis indicates a 41% ridership reduction in 2020 compared to 2019. While trips increased in 2021, they were still 35% lower than in 2019. Notably, medical trips increased and appeared to replace social trips, causing spatial change in the most-visited destinations. SARIMAX models confirm that several COVID-19 policies such as workplace closures and protection of older people significantly impacted medical, work, and social trips while vaccinations and case counts did not. Besides policy scores, sociodemographic characteristics significantly affected trip patterns during the pandemic phases. This research highlights the COVID-19 impact on paratransit ridership, offering policy recommendations to prepare for future disruptions.