The Unequal Effects of Social Distancing Policy on Subway Ridership during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Seoul, South Korea

Abstract

In the Republic of Korea, social distancing policies relied on voluntary participation by citizens and exhibited short-term changes. In this situation, the effects of such policies varied depending on each community’s capacity to comply. Here, we collected subway ridership data for 294 stations on nine Seoul Metro lines and aggregated the data for each station to the 184 smallest administrative areas. We found that the mean percent change in subway ridership was fitted by an additive model of the log-transformed percent ratio of the restaurant industry (estimated degrees of freedom (EDF) = 3.24, P < 0.001), the Deprivation Index (DI) (EDF = 3.66, P = 0.015), and the proportion of essential workers (β = − 0.10 (95% confidence interval − 0.15 to − 0.05, P < 0.001). We found a distinct decrease in subway ridership only in the least deprived areas, suggesting that social distancing is costly.

Deprivation, essential and non-essential activities and SARS-CoV-2 infection following the lifting of national public health restrictions in England and Wales

“…In El Paso, Texas, throughout the pandemic, recreational walking and use of green spaces was more greatly reduced in neighbourhoods with more deprivation than in less deprived neighbourhoods 34 . In Seoul, South Korea, the frequency of subway use during the pandemic decreased only in the least deprived areas, suggesting a disparity in the ability to sociallydistance by deprivation, similar to our own findings 35 . Our study, found stark disparities by deprivation status in activities undertaken such as working outside the home, use of public transport, and frequency of hospitality and leisure activities.…”

Changes on local travel behaviors under travel reduction-related interventions during COVID-19 pandemic: a case study in Hong Kong

“…Moreover, high passenger volume was associated with the higher infection rate of destinations (e.g. bars, restaurants, and sport events) (Zhang et al 2021b) and the least deprived area (Ha et al 2022). It not only promotes the spread of virus to other parts of the city but also may lead to an outbreak in carriages (Hamidi and Hamidi, 2021).…”

Examining the causal relationship between bike-share and public transit in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Previous researchers have also tried to define pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic criteria. For example, some marked the first occurrence of COVID-19 ( Milani, 2021 ; Mzoughi et al, 2020 ) or the first social distancing measures ( Ha et al, 2022 ; Kamga et al, 2021 ), but they did not have theoretical evidence of diving them. If future research develops a more scientific methodology to define the phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be more helpful to understand the temporal dynamics of bike-transit relationships in the disastrous pandemic situation.…”

“…However, researchers have argued that the concrete separation of the pre- and post- COVID-19 periods is difficult due to the vagueness of specifying when the virus affects people's behavior ( Xin et al, 2021 ). Therefore, recent studies have considered social distancing policies and people's behavioral shifts in response to COVID-19 ( Ha et al, 2022 ; Kamga et al, 2021 ).…”