In Izmir, as in other cities, there has been a significant decrease in the number of people using public transportation since the beginning of the pandemic. Those who had access to private vehicles switched to using them, and public transportation such as ferries, buses, and metros ceased to be the preferred choice.
It was possible to observe this transition process from a distance. The increase in individual vehicle use led to a noticeable increase in traffic on the city’s main arteries.
This situation can be demonstrated with data, as the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality recently launched an open data portal. Public transportation data shared by ESHOT General Directorate shows a clear decrease in the use of public transportation in Izmir, especially after the sharing of coronavirus cases in Turkey.
You can examine the rates of Izmir residents’ use of public transportation in the graph I prepared using this data.
For this graph, I only used ESHOT buses as a sample, and the date range is from February 1, 2020, to December 1, 2020.