SPECIAL REPORT

Canadian Travel Behaviour Affected byCOVID-19 Health & Safety Restrictions

Nov. 30, 2020

SPECIAL REPORTCanadian Travel Behaviour Affected byCOVID-19 Health & Safety Restrictions

THE AFFECT OFNATURE

The affects of COVID-19 have been felt throught our industry, however we’re in better shape than we were at the start of the pandemic. This report will highlight some key considerations.

COMMB has conducted a review of traffic data to assess changes to travel behaviour since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The review included sourcing mobile location data on over 12,000 geo-fenced static and digital outdoor advertising faces, publicly available data sources such as Apple, and geolocation mapping applications that pro-vide insights such as driving direction. Data from these sources has been analyzed and output for multi-week periods to provide insight and illustrate a representative snap-shot of travel behaviour, by market as well as a 7 market average.

Provincial and/or municipal ‘stay at home’ restrictions put in place in various markets have affected travel behaviour patterns, how-ever not to the drastic impact the early onset of the pandemic had in May. While we are

seeing a curvature in the decline of move-ment in major markets, we are still signifi-cantly above the decline in movement observed from late April through to end of May.

This report includes information and data of actual results through to Nov. 1. Using these actuals, the COMMB team has modeled and estimated % for the weeks of Nov 2nd – 29th, based on any and all available data at the time of release of this report. COMMB will include the actualized data from Nov 2-29 in future reports and anticipates an adjustment to its estimated numbers at that time.

Since last reported, all 7-markets have seen a decrease in travel behaviour patterns between August through the end of October.

The actual numbers show Halifax holding at just -2% below baseline through October, with all other provinces ranging between -14% to -20% for the same time period (through toNov 1st, 2020).

As of Nov 1st, Ottawa is at -20%, Toronto and Montreal at -19%, Vancouver and Edmonton at -15%, and Calgary at -14%, representing adirect affect of COVID-19 warnings in theseregions. While there has been significantdecline in consumer movements throughoutthe month of November, these numbers arealso reflective of government identified ‘redzones’. On a positive note, while there hasbeen a decline in consumer travel patterns,we are seeing higher percentage of move-ment than the phase 1 COVID-19 patterns,observed in April to May of 2020, which rep-resents the consumer willingness to still moveabout their day-to-day, in a safe and responsi-ble manner.

Our estimates are seeing a trend for contin-ued decreases through the end of November, ranging from ~11 to ~25 percent since August 30th, 2020. These estimates show Montreal with the largest decrease down ~25 percentage points since our last report. Ottawa, Toronto & Edmonton are estimated to decrease ~18 points, Vancouver & Calgary down ~17 & ~16 points, respectively, and Halifax decreasing by ~11 points. The percentages for each market & the 7-market average on the graph for the weeks of Nov 2 – 29 are modeled

estimates based on data available at the time of release of this report.

Data over 9 weeks, starting in January 2020 through March 15th, 2020 was used as a base-line to calculate the % differential by week, which, for the spring/summer months were then averaged for the weeks reported at that time (April 27-August 30).

The data contained in this report represents general travel behaviour activity and is not applicable to specific OOH advertising loca-tions, as travel patterns will vary market-to-market, by road type and other external factors.

Click Here to view previous Travel Behaviour Reports.

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