What went into this analysis?
For this particular analysis we asked ourselves the following questions: Do we see an overall reduction of mobility following COVID-19 restrictions? If yes, how strong was the reduction? How quickly did people comply?
The data is taken over a 24-hour period to give a correlation of traffic flows in a one-day snapshot. We chose Friday, January 24 as a baseline, as it was before COVID-19 restrictions, but close enough to today’s situation. For the view during COVID-19 restrictions we chose Friday, April 6, so mobility trends were not impacted by the Easter period.
Top ten worldwide cities
Cities around the world, without exception, have seen a sharp reduction in traffic volumes, some by almost 85%. This demonstrates the willingness of people to restrict their movements to contain the spread of the coronavirus. While some traffic movements are still essential – to stock supermarket shelves and for key workers to get to hospitals – many journeys that are deemed unnecessary have been curbed.
To see the scale of the change in mobility patterns across the world, we performed an analysis of the top ten cities in the world with the highest traffic reduction. Using the average traffic figures from the week of January 20 as a baseline, we compared these to the ones from the week of March 30. Taking Milan as an example, this means that the average traffic in the city was 84.78% lower than what you would expect to see in a normal week.
The top ten cities in the world for traffic reduction include:
- 1. Milan, Italy – 84.78%
- 2. Paris, France – 84.10%
- 3. Rome, Italy – 83.80%
- 4. Madrid, Spain – 83.27%
- 5. Monaco, Monaco – 79.44%
- 6. Barcelona, Spain – 81.04%
- 7. Manchester, UK – 75.65%
- 8. Lisbon, Portugal – 75.54%
- 9. Lyon, France – 73.66%
- 10. Boston, USA – 73.40%
Other significant cities just outside the top 10 include Birmingham, UK (71.89%), London, UK (71.37%), Sao Paulo, Brazil (70.17%), New York, USA (69.96%), and Moscow, Russia (65.44%).
A full breakdown of some of our latest traffic stats can be found
here.
Easter weekend
With bank holidays and sunny weather tempting people to enjoy the great outdoors in the Northern Hemisphere, can traffic data indicate how much citizens respect restrictions on movement?
Using the UK as an example, we looked at traffic data over the Easter weekend. The data suggests that between April 10 and April 12, the British respected social distancing guidelines and, despite good weather conditions, stayed at home instead of taking to parks and coastal locations.