Like other countries, the United States has found that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a sharp reduction in passenger travel in 2020. If the Americans had carried out 498 billion trips - all types - in 2019the year 2020 saw a total of 370 billion journeys.down 26 %.
The decline by mode of transport is therefore general. It is reaching 48% for aircraft movements and 60% for commercial airline passengers. In 2019, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checked 823 million passengers in airports. This figure fell last year to 324 million. The DOT's Bureau of Statistics will publish more precise figures on the state of air transport in 2020 in mid-March.
Public transport affected by the pandemic
At the borders, the number of passenger vehicles entering the United States has also fallen with the virtual closure of American territory. Travel for tourism, shopping and family visits is no longer permitted. In 2020, 1.8 million passenger vehicles entered the United States from CanadaThis represents a decline of 91 % compared with the 20 million admissions forecast for 2019.
With Mexico, the United States registered 31.6 million passenger vehicles. This represents a more limited decline of 37 %. The border between Mexico and the United States recorded 50.3 million vehicles in 2019.
The public transport didn't escape the gloom. In New York, the Metropolitan Transit Authority recorded 667 million passengers compared with 1.79 billion a year earlier. This represents a fall of 63%.
The performance of WMATA in Washington DC was even worse. The federal capital's transport agency saw ridership on its buses and metros fall by 79%. This translated into 53 million passengers in 2020 instead of 248 million in 2019.
A San Franciscothe BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), which manages the regional train network, has seen its traffic fall from 98 to 14 million passengers.
