Since the state of emergency was established in Romania, on March 16, 2020, and any travels - including those by private car - must be justified by a written self-declaration, road traffic in Timișoara has decreased visibly.
As of March 27, the Public Transport Company announced new changes in the timetables of the means of public transport because of the travel restrictions imposed by the national lockdown. Therefore, buses, trolleybuses and trams run only between 04.00-08.00/09.00 and 11.00-22.30 on working days. On non-working days, they start running at 6am. These measures were taken in accordance with the reality on the ground, the loading degree on all public transport lines decreasing greatly in the past weeks.
Prevention measures against COVID-19 have alleviated traffic in the city. However, it is hard to tell exactly how much traffic has decreased in Timișoara because of the pandemic, but the data provided by Google or the Waze app can give us a clue. Below, you can see a graph showing how the frequency of the Waze app usage has decreased considerably in March and April 2020.
On the other hand, Google came up with Community Mobility Reports that provide insights into how urban mobility has changed in response to policies aimed at combating COVID-19. The report for the Timiș County charts movement trends, from late February till mid-April, across different categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential. We can notice a decrease in people’s walking in parks, going to shopping malls, restaurants, entertainment facilities, pharmacies, going to work, and travelling by public transport. The only increase is in the movement around the residential areas.
