Activity Duration under the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Analysis among Different Urbanized Areas Using a Hazard-Based Duration Model

Chunguang Liu, Xinyu Zuo, Xiaoning Gu, Mengru Shao () and Chao Chen ()
Additional contact information
Chunguang Liu: Don School, International Education College, Shandong Jiaotong University, Jinan 250357, China
Xinyu Zuo: Don School, International Education College, Shandong Jiaotong University, Jinan 250357, China
Xiaoning Gu: State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, School of Automotive Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
Mengru Shao: Urban Planning and Transportation, Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Chao Chen: State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, School of Automotive Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 12, 1-28

Abstract: There have been significant changes in daily activities and corresponding durations since the outbreak of COVID-19. This study examines how the built environment factors and individual/household characteristics affect activity durations (e.g., shopping, social-related, hiking, and working) under the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzes the heterogeneity between different urbanized areas using the data of a Dutch national travel survey in 2020. A hazard-based duration model (e.g., the Cox proportional hazard model) was used to predict activity durations. Estimation results showed that the activity durations for different social groups varied under different geographical and policy conditions. In particular, women and seniors are more susceptible to the unprecedented pandemic, manifested in significantly shorter durations for work and hiking activities. In addition, couples with one or more children need to shorten their working hours and give more attention to their children due to the closure of nurseries and schools. Furthermore, the influences of built environment factors also present significant differences. A higher number of service facilities does not significantly foster the extension of hiking activity duration; however, this is the opposite among regions with more open green areas. Compared with previous studies on analyzing the influencing factors of activity durations, this study incorporated some unique variables (e.g., COVID-19 countermeasures and urban class) to consider the temporal and spatial heterogeneity under the particular pandemic period.

Keywords: built environment; COVID-19 countermeasures; activity duration; spatial heterogeneity; hazard-based duration model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/12/9537/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/12/9537/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:12:p:9537-:d:1170655

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().