Impacts of COVID-19 Traffic Control Policy on Population Flows in Changsha

To investigate the impact of COVID-19 traffic control policies on population flow in Changsha, this paper divided the prevention and traffic control policies into different stages corresponding to the real-time epidemic situation in Changsha. Based on Baidu migration big data, the difference- in- difference model was used to identify different stages of traffic prevention and control policies and quantify the effect of prevention. With the traffic control policy implemented during COVID-19, the average inflow intensity of Changsha City decreased by 83.68%, the average outflow intensity decreased by 69.24% and the internal travel intensity respectively, decreased by 59.74%. After the end of the traffic control policies, the population flow intensity of Changsha City gradually rebounded, and the urban internal travel intensity basically recovered to the same level as in 2019. The results indicated the effectiveness of the traffic control policies on the limitation of population flow and epidemic spread. The results also provide reference for making effective prevention and control policies for the normalized COVID-19 epidemic situations. Copyright © 2021 by Science Press.