Trip Purpose
Despite the extraordinary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on daily life and work culture, the share of trips made by purpose stayed mostly consistent from 2019 to 2023 (Figure 1). Across all three years, the most common trip purpose was work or work-related, followed by social/recreational trips and shopping trips.
From 2019 to 2021, the share of trips made for work and work-related purposes declined from 26% of trips to 23% of trips, then declined again slightly to 22% of trips in 2023. Conversely, the share of trips made for shopping and errands increased from 2019 to 2021, then declined from 2021 to 2023.
Comparisons of the share of trip purpose by year must be made carefully, because overall trip rates declined during the COVID-19 pandemic and did not fully recover (Table 1). An alternative measure, the participation rate, can be used instead: this measure represents the share of people who make any given type of trip on a typical day (Figure 2), and as such accounts for both changes in the types of trips people make and the changes in the amount of travel people make.
The trends in Figure 2 suggest a number of underlying processes at work.
The effects of telework on travel behavior are easy to spot: the share of people making work and work-related trips declined from 2019 to 2021, then slightly rebounded from 2021 to 2023 (Figure 2). Work-related trips (to meetings, deliveries, worksites) took a greater hit than trips to and from primary workplaces. From 2019 to 2023, the share of people making trips to work-related locations fell from 16% to 8%. Teleconferencing could be replacing trips that used to be made in person.
The fingerprint of e-commerce is also visible in the data. For example, the percent of people making a routine shopping trip on a typical day fell from 14% in 2019 to 10% in 2021, and then to 9% in 2023 (Figure 2).
Finally, the lingering effects of the pandemic on social life are also apparent. The share of people making a social visit trip more than halved from 2019 to 2021, then rebounded only slightly in 2023 (Figure 2) . Similarly, the share of people making trips to exercise or walk outside declined from 2019 to 2021 and again from 2021 to 2023.