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COVID Future panel survey: A unique public dataset documenting how U.S. residents’ travel-related choices changed during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented global crisis that has impacted virtually everyone. We conducted a nationwide online longitudinal survey in the United States to collect information about the shifts in travel-related behavior and attitudes before, during, and after the pandemic. The survey asked questions about commuting, long distance travel, working from home, online learning, online shopping, pandemic experiences, attitudes, and demographic information. The survey was deployed to the same respondents thrice to observe how the responses to the pandemic have evolved over time. The first wave of the survey was conducted from April 2020 to June 2021, the second wave from November 2020 to August 2021, and the third wave from October 2021 to November 2021. In total, 9,265 responses were collected in the first wave; of these, 2,877 respondents returned for the second wave and 2,728 for the third wave. All survey data are publicly available. This unique dataset can aid policy makers’ decision making in areas including transport, workforce development, and more. This article demonstrates the framework for conducting this online longitudinal survey. It details the step-by-step procedure involved in conducting the survey and in curating the data to make it representative of the national trends.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID program under grants no. 2030156 and 2029962 and by the Center for Teaching Old Models New Tricks (TOMNET), a University Transportation Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation through grant no. 69A3551747116, as well as by the Knowledge Exchange for Resilience at Arizona State University. This COVID-19 Working Group effort was also supported by the NSF-funded Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) network and the CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder (NSF Award #1841338) and the NSF CAREER award under grant no. 155173.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA

    R. S. Chauhan, E. Rahimi, A. Mohammadian & S. Derrible

  2. Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

    M. Bhagat-Conway

  3. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA

    T. B. Magassy, A. Dirks & R. M. Pendyala

  4. School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85281, USA

    N. Corcoran & D. Salon

Authors
  1. R. S. Chauhan
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  2. M. Bhagat-Conway
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  3. T. B. Magassy
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  4. N. Corcoran
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  5. E. Rahimi
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  6. A. Dirks
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  7. R. M. Pendyala
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  8. A. Mohammadian
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  9. S. Derrible
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  10. D. Salon
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Contributions

Study conceptualization and supervision: RMP, AM, SD, and DS. Methodology development: RSC, MBC, TM, ER, RMP, AK, SD, and DS. Formal analysis and investigation: RSC, MBC, TM, and NC. Funding: RMP, AM, SD, and DS. Early writing: RSC, MBC, TM, and NC. All authors contributed to writing and editing; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to R. S. Chauhan.

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Chauhan, R.S., Bhagat-Conway, M., Magassy, T.B. et al. COVID Future panel survey: A unique public dataset documenting how U.S. residents’ travel-related choices changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Transportation (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-024-10479-4

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