More walking and less driving since COVID in Denmark, England, Germany, and the Netherlands: Evidence from national travel surveys disaggregated by socioeconomic groups

Introduction This paper analyzes the national travel surveys of Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and England to compare travel behavior before and after the COVID pandemic. We focus on walking and car use because, as our analysis shows, they exhibit large changes over that period. Methods We base our graphical analysis on cross-sectional national travel surveys that are representative for each of the 4 countries in the years before and after the COVID pandemic: 2017-2019 and 2023-2024. We present trends in the number of trips by mode per year, total time traveled by mode per year, and modal-split share of trips over time. We disaggregate our analysis of modal shares by gender, age, income, car ownership/access, employment status, and population density. We calculated Pearson's chi-square tests to assess whether the proportion of trips made by walking or driving differed significantly between 2017-2019 and 2023-2024 for each country. Results We find that walking increased in all four countries between 2017-2019 and 2023-2024 according to all three of the measures we used. Even disaggregated by socioeconomic characteristics, the modal share of walking increased for almost all groups in all countries. By contrast, the car mode share decreased for almost all socioeconomic groups. Most chi-square tests showed statistically significant (p < .05) differences between 2017-2019 and 2023-2024. Conclusion The increase in walking, combined with the reduction in car use, may have generated considerable physical, mental, social, and environmental health benefits. That provides a rationale for better infrastructure and policies to encourage more walking.