Identifying Travel Patterns During Extreme Weather Using Taxi GPS Data

Abstract

Analysis of taxi global positioning system (GPS) pickup and dropoff records in Manhattan was conducted to compare potential differences in how and where New Yorkers travel during a major winter storm in February 2013 and during fair weather conditions. The purpose of this study was to identify unique patterns of travel during a highly disruptive weather event in New York City, assess the impacts of that event on travel behavior, and demonstrate the applications of GPS technology and use of probe data in situational analyses of the interaction between environmental conditions and transportation system operations. This study finds that travelers opted to take shorter trips during the snowstorm than during fair weather conditions, and that average travel speeds during the storm were surprisingly faster than usual during the evening rush hour as commuters left work early, but slower during the overnight hours, as the storm intensified. The analysis results also indicate that taxi trips during work hours remained relatively consistent with the fair weather day in spite of the heavy snowfall; however, taxi trip volumes in the evening and overnight hours during the storm from Friday, February 8 through Saturday, February 9 were sharply lower than during fair weather, partly due to a sharp reduction in taxi supply, which lagged taxi demand in recovery in the hours after the storm’s passage.

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