Recovery tracker: Mobility, railway indicators hold steady as cases rise

Traffic and emissions are lower in some places than others relative to pre-pandemic days

The rise in the number of Covid-19 cases hasn’t been a dampener for people conducting business just yet. People are still stepping out to work and for other reasons, railways show growth in goods carried and power generation is also higher than before.

Business Standard tracks mobility, pollution levels, goods carried by the Indian railways, traffic and power generation data to check on the weekly pace of recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic which began in 2020.

Official economic data is often released with a lag. Analysts globally have been tracking similar indicators to get a current sense of the economy as different nations went through lockdowns to control the pandemic. India is currently seeing an increase in the number of cases. The seven-day rolling average number of cases is up nearly 40 per cent from its lowest point in 2020 of around 10,000 cases shows data from pandemic tracker covid19india.org.

Power generation was around five per cent higher for the week ending February 28th. It had dropped by almost 30 per cent at the height of the lockdown (see chart 1).

The Indian Railways carried 12.8 per cent more goods for the seven days ending February 28th. Earnings from the goods carried were up 11.6 per cent. The corresponding figures were between 6-9 per cent towards the end of January (see chart 2).

Search engine Google tracks location data across countries to see how people are behaving during the pandemic. It provides data on visits to various places by category with a lag, the latest being as of February 23rd. Workplace visits are 86 per cent of what is seen during normal times.  It is 88 per cent for parks, and nearly 95 per cent for transit stations like subways (see chart 3).

Emissions show a divergence between Delhi and Mumbai. Business Standard tracks levels of nitrogen dioxide which comes from industrial activity and vehicles. Delhi emissions are up 30 per cent for the seven days ending Sunday 28th February compared to last year. Mumbai’s emissions are down 97 per cent in the same period.  Mumbai has been seeing a rise in cases with over a thousand new cases being reported on multiple occasions towards the end of February (see chart 4,5).

 

This is also borne out by the traffic congestion data. Mumbai’s Monday morning traffic congestion is lower than it was a month ago, shows data from global location technology firm TomTom International. It is now at 50 per cent below normal times on March 1st at 9 am. New Delhi’s traffic congestion is down 37 per cent (see chart 6).