Spatial Analysis of Changes in Public Transport Passengers (City Buses) during the Corona Pandemic in Mashhad

The present study seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the changes in the passengers of the city buses during the corona pandemic in Mashhad. The study method is descriptive-analytical, the research variables include 21 variables of social, economic characteristics and physical characteristics, and the study scale includes 3600 bus stations in 1200 statistical areas of Mashhad. The time period includes the data of the bus organization before the Corona outbreak (winter 2019 to winter 2020) and after it (March 2020 to September 2021). The techniques used include 1) classical statistical methods, such as "paired t", "correlation", and "regression", as well as 2) spatial analysis methods, such as "interpolation" and "Moran two-way spatial autocorrelation". The results indicate a significant difference in the number of the passengers in Mashhad. In 16.5% of the stations (602), the number of the passengers has increased significantly after the Corona and in 83.5% stations, it has decreased. Also, an inverse relationship was observed between the changes in the number of the station passengers with the variables of higher education, the number of elderly, housing ownership, average income, car ownership and female employees. Moreover, a direct relationship was observed with religious minority, low level of education, population below the poverty line, number of simple workers, number of male employees, rental ownership of housing, distance to the center of activity, access to medical centers, and distance from the informal settlement. The results showed that social variables in inclusion, and economic variables in severity were most related to the changes in the number of the passengers after the corona