Background: Several prescribed preventive measures during COVID-19 pandemic has brought changes in mode choice patterns. This study is focused on the distribution of the travelers’ modal choice pattern amidst lockdown period in Dhaka city. A comprehensive questionnaire survey with 224 responders (Male 34.8%, Female 65.2%) has been conducted where participants have chosen their modes based on five factors ie, transmission risk, comfort, safety, cost-effectiveness, and timeliness. Additionally, travel frequencies, ride sharing preferences and overall satisfactions were also documented.

Methods: Frequency analysis represented the number and percentage of responses under each category to understand the inclination of people’s choice in response to several factors. To understand the relation between and within categorical and continuous variables, Chi Square test has been conducted. One-way Chi-Square test is performed on categorical variables namely age, gender, income, safety, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, transmission risks, comfort, satisfaction, and ride sharing to understand if the observed distribution is same as the expected distribution or not with the significance value 0.05. The two-way chi square test analyzed whether there is an association between age, gender, monthly income with the choices under safety, comfort, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, high risk of virus transmission, ride-sharing preferences.

Results: Approximately 82.6% respondents are in age group of 14-29 years. It is found that about 58.9% people did not travel even once in a week and 4.5% people travelled daily during the lockdown period. Respondents perceive that auto-rickshaw/CNG has the highest risk of transmission (37.1%) whereas motorcycle has the lowest (5.8%). Considering fare, maximum people (28.6%) preferred private-car and rickshaw. Modal choice distribution, based on comfort during lockdown is the highest for cars with 57.1% and the lowest for public transports with 0.9%. Distribution of modal choices considering safety was 39.7% for car and 2.2% for CNG/auto-rickshaw. This survey discovered that about 78.6% people completely preferred to avoid ridesharing. It is evident from one-way Chi square test that the categorical variables have a significant relationship. According to two-way Chi square test, during the lockdown period, gender has a statistically significant influence on selection when it comes to cost effectiveness and timeliness. Also, monthly income and overall satisfaction with the trips are not independent of each other and there is significant relationship between them as well.

Conclusions: The vehicles with a high risk of virus transmission should ensure cleanliness, mandatory use of face masks by drivers and passengers, online fare system and possible minimum social distancing.