People on the Move
Despite a UK wide lockdown, people continue to move around for work, shopping and leisure activities.
Under the current lockdown restrictions, out of home mobility continues to be reduced across Northern Ireland. Many people have replaced their work commute with a daily walk, run or other exercise closer to home – all made more appealing by the spell of good weather. Essential grocery shopping journeys have also been much more localised.
Analysing the latest mobility data from Locomizer, along with Apple and Google’s mobility trends for NI, we are seeing the shift in people’s movement from city centres, and places of work, more to suburban areas.
Apple mobility data shows that driving activity in NI at the beginning of April dropped to 42% of previous baseline levels. In spite of the consistent government advice to make only essential journeys, there has been a gradual rise in driving activity in NI over the past 5 weeks, increasing to 56% of the baseline value (data as of 5th May 2020).
Eased restrictions show surge in non-residential footfall
Data from Google’s mobility tracker indicates there has been a gradual increase in non-residential footfall activity throughout the month of April for the UK and Ireland, whilst still under formal lockdown. The UK data reporting a 15% increase in footfall for the month and Ireland data reporting a rise of 7.8%. Looking at other parts of Europe, where countries have started to relax restrictions in the past two weeks, there has been a surge in non-residential footfall activity. Both Poland and Germany were more than 50% busier at the end of April than at the end of March.
