Quantitative Framework for Establishing Low-Risk Inter-District Travel Corridors During COVID-19

Aspirations to slow down the spread of novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) resulted in unprecedented restrictions on personal and work-related travels in various nations across the globe in 2020. As a consequence, economic activities within and across the countries were almost halted. As restrictions loosen and cities start to resume public and private transport to revamp the economy, it becomes critical to assess the commuters' travel-related risk in light of the ongoing pandemic. The paper develops a generalizable quantitative framework to evaluate the commute-related risk arising from inter-district and intra-district travel by combining nonparametric data envelopment analysis for vulnerability assessment with transportation network analysis. It demonstrates the application of the proposed model for establishing travel corridors within and across Gujarat and Maharashtra, two Indian states that have reported many COVID-19 cases since early April 2020. The findings suggest that establishing travel corridors between a pair of districts solely based on the health vulnerability indices of the origin and destination discards the en-route travel risks from the prevalent pandemic, underestimating the threat. For example, while the resultant of social and health vulnerabilities of Narmada and Vadodara districts is relatively moderate, the en-route travel risk exacerbates the overall travel risk of travel between them. The study provides a quantitative framework to identify the alternate path with the least risk and hence establish low-risk travel corridors within and across states while accounting for social and health vulnerabilities in addition to transit-time related risks.