Impact of Covid-19 on the Mobility Patterns : An Investigation of Taxi Trips in Chicago

The COVID-19 outbreak has impacted urban transportation mobility throughout the world. In this paper, we investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the urban mobility network's structural characteristics. We contribute to the literature by discussing how various community areas in the city traffic network are impacted by the pandemic. We analyze a large dataset on urban mobility from the city of Chicago and derive various insights. Our dataset has information on about 3.6 million taxi trips over ten months between January and October 2020. Our analysis of the mobility network structure is important because a better understanding of such networks can help control the spread of the disease by reducing interactions among individuals. We find that the pandemic significantly impacted the structure of the mobility network of taxis in Chicago. Our study reveals some important pointers for policymakers that could potentially aid in developing urban transportation policies during the pandemic