Impact of Covid-19 Restrictions and Fuel Price on Traffic Volume and Offenses in Iran: A Spatiotemporal Analysis

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent imposition of mobility restrictions in many nations, traffic volumes and driving behaviors have changed worldwide. This study aims to investigate the impact of fuel price and COVID-19 restrictions on traffic volume and offenses (speeding, tailgating, and illegal overtaking) in Iran’s provincial and aggregated data in the study period of March 21, 2019 to May 20, 2020. A time-series analysis was conducted to capture the effects of interventions in level and trend, followed by a spatial autocorrelation of the interventions among provinces to identify the provinces that formed clusters in terms of traffic volume and offenses before and after each intervention. According to the results, while an increase in fuel price could decrease traffic volume and offenses (except for Illegal overtaking), at least in the short term, most of the COVID-19 restrictions (and the pandemic itself) did not reduce the volume and rate of traffic offenses. Furthermore, traffic volume showed an increasing trend after the imposition of mobility restrictions, suggesting that preventive measures could not control intercity trips during the pandemic. Based on the results of the spatiotemporal analysis, mobility restrictions effectively removed some provinces from the clusters with above-average volume, tailgating, and overtaking data. The possible reasons for these findings and potential solutions are discussed.