PLOS ONE

RESEARCH ARTICLE

How do the smart travel ban policy and

intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19
trends? Lessons learned from Iran
Habibollah Nassiri ID*, Seyed Iman Mohammadpour, Mohammad Dahaghin

Civil Engineering Department, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

* [email protected]

Abstract
a1111111111 COVID-19, as the most significant epidemic of the century, infected 467 million people and
a1111111111 took the lives of more than 6 million individuals as of March 19, 2022. Due to the rapid trans-
a1111111111 mission of the disease and the lack of definitive treatment, countries have employed non-
a1111111111 pharmaceutical interventions. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the smart
a1111111111
travel ban policy, which has been implemented for non-commercial vehicles in the intercity
highways of Iran since November 21, 2020. The other goal was to suggest efficient COVID-
19 forecasting tools and to examine the association of intercity travel patterns and COVID-
19 trends in Iran. To this end, weekly confirmed cases and deaths due to COVID-19 and the
OPEN ACCESS intercity traffic flow reported by loop detectors were aggregated at the country’s level. The
Citation: Nassiri H, Mohammadpour SI, Dahaghin Box-Jenkins methodology was employed to evaluate the policy’s effectiveness, using the
M (2022) How do the smart travel ban policy and
interrupted time series analysis. The results indicated that the autoregressive integrated
intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends?
Lessons learned from Iran. PLoS ONE 17(10): moving average with explanatory variable (ARIMAX) model outperformed the univariate
e0276276. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. ARIMA model in predicting the disease trends based on the MAPE criterion. The weekly
pone.0276276 intercity traffic and its lagged variables were entered as covariates in both models of the dis-
Editor: Quan Yuan, Tsinghua University, CHINA ease cases and deaths. The results indicated that the weekly intercity traffic increases the
Received: March 28, 2022 new weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths with a time lag of two and five weeks, respectively.
Besides, the interrupted time series analysis indicated that the smart travel ban policy had
Accepted: October 4, 2022
decreased intercity travel by around 29%. Nonetheless, it had no significant direct effect on
Published: October 18, 2022
COVID-19 trends. This study suggests that the travel ban policy would not be efficient lonely
Copyright: © 2022 Nassiri et al. This is an open unless it is coupled with active measures and adherence to health protocols by the people.
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited.

Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are Introduction

within the article and its Supporting Information COVID-19 (COVID) was first detected in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019; the local epi-
files.
demic transformed into a worldwide pandemic rapidly. Iran was the first Middle East country
Funding: The author(s) received no specific which reported a COVID death. Since then, the country has been largely affected, with more
funding for this work. than seven million confirmed cases and over one hundred thousand COVID deaths [1]. In
Competing interests: The authors have declared response, the governments imposed social distancing and lockdown policies to contain the
that no competing interests exist. pandemic. Which in turn resulted in new challenges such as the economic recession [2],

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

mental health issues [3], educational concerns [4], and food insecurity concerns [5]. In con-
trast to the dark side of the epidemic, the reduction of road traffic and polluting activities has
led to positive environmental and ecological results [6]. Besides, some studies reported signifi-
cant declines in road traffic fatalities [7].
Nowadays, infectious diseases are spreading around the world significantly at a sharper
pace. This fact could be referred to the ease of international travel and increased populated
metropolitans [8]. COVID is a viral illness with no definitive treatment, and therefore, control-
ling the transmission of the disease is the main way to contain the pandemic. China’s govern-
ment has been successful in controlling the disease in its first stages by enforcing strict
quarantine policies on infected individuals and cities, as well as controlling intercity traffic [9].
On the other hand, studies illustrated that the travel quarantine of Wuhan delayed the overall
epidemic progression by only 3 to 5 days in Mainland China [10]. Moreover, the modelling
study showed that additional travel limitations, up to 90% travel restrictions to and from
Mainland China, only modestly affect the epidemic trajectory worldwide unless combined
with a 50% or higher reduction of transmission in the community [10]. Consequently, it is cru-
cial to inform people that a reduction in mobility does not necessarily lead to a decline in
COVID trends and that it is therefore essential for citizens to take active measures to protect
themselves and others. In addition to the often-inconsistent results of previous studies, some
developing countries do not have the economic strength to adopt strict quarantine and travel
ban policies. So, such countries can employ solely certain elements of China’s strategy, includ-
ing suspension of public transportation, closure of recreational areas, and a ban on public
assemblies that have been the most effective measures to contain the disease [11].
Iran employed a very flexible policy in both international and intercity travels. On March
27th, 2020, authorities implemented a 1.8-meters social distancing policy on COVID in all Ira-
nian cities to control the disease. To preserve the economy, the public health authorities
divided the business activities into four groups, and a smart, dynamic policy was adopted so
that specific groups would not be allowed to operate in the corresponding specified severity
levels of the epidemic. An interrupted time series analysis indicated the efficiency of the policy
as it has declined the COVID’s deaths during the first peak significantly [12]. On November
21, 2020, the government applied a new intervention, termed the “Smart Travel Ban (STB)”
policy. According to this policy, only drivers who intend to travel intercity for commercial and
essential purposes can commute. Private car drivers will face significant fines if they violate the
travel ban on the intercity highways. Besides, the travel ban is smart and dynamic as it is imple-
mented between cities with certain epidemic severity levels, and is not constant over time and
space. To date, no study has examined the effectiveness of the policy in reducing intercity
travel and COVID trends in Iran.
The multivariate time series regression models could be of great help in making well-
informed decisions for the health policymakers in controlling the spread of infections and
managing the over-stressed health infrastructures [13]. The COVID affects the respiratory sys-
tem in the patients, which higher the demand for intensive care units (ICU). Consequently, it
is crucial to predict peaks of demand accurately to provide adequate infrastructure. Moreover,
dynamic forecasting models are also employed to analyze and compare the impacts of various
implemented interventions. Besides, another advantage of multivariate time series analysis is
their ability to map real solutions by illustrating the underlying time-varying influential fac-
tors. In addition to the number of adopted variables, epidemic modelling methods have
evolved and can be widely classified into three categories, mathematical, statistical, and
advanced analytical modelling techniques [14]. The traditional mathematical techniques such
as the SEIR (Spread, Exposed, Infected, and Recovered) model are the most employed methods
in epidemiology. These techniques are inherently deterministic and cannot correctly handle

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

the spatiotemporal variability and uncertain nature of the COVID pandemic in the long-term
predictions [15]. Advanced analytical models such as machine learning, deep learning, and
artificial neural networks have been widely employed to account for the nonlinear dependen-
cies in the time series. The theoretical basis of these models in time series prediction has almost
been questionable. Because it is not clear that if the trend and seasonal components are
detected, should they be discarded before model estimation or not? Moreover, the best
approach to split the dataset to training and test data is not clear in the literature [16]. The
most utilized statistical time series regression model is the ARIMA method which has indi-
cated its advantages in capturing the linear dependence in the time series and is one of the best
linear models for such data [17]. Indeed, the advanced nonlinear models only outperform the
ARIMA method when the nonlinear dependence is evident in the time series data set [18].
This study aimed to suggest answers to the following questions:
1. How has the smart travel ban policy influenced the intercity travel pattern and COVID
trends (e.g., new weekly COVID cases and new weekly COVID deaths) in Iran?
2. Does the multivariate ARIMAX model outperform its univariate counterpart in COVID
trend prediction, incorporating the simultaneous effects of exogenous variables?
This research adds to the body of knowledge on transport policy-making and containing
the COVID pandemic. First, the efficiency of the smart travel ban policy has not been exam-
ined to date. The economy-friendly and dynamic features of this policy make it practical for
implementation in Low-to-Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Second, the multivariate
COVID forecasting tools can more accurately capture the underlying trends. That is while all
the past studies have used the univariate analysis framework in Iran. Third, there is still limited
knowledge on the quantitative effects of intercity travel patterns on COVID trends, as well as
on the duration of time that should be used to capture changes after policy implementation on
controlling human mobility.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. A thorough literature review of previous stud-
ies is presented in section 2. The details of the related dataset and the methodology of devel-
oped models are provided in the next section. The models are fitted to the data, and the
forecasting results are presented in Section 4 and discussed in Section 5. Finally, the paper is
concluded in Section 6.

Literature review
The association of human mobility & COVID-19 trends
Xiao et al. [9] reported that the quarantine policy declined the effective reproductive numbers
(Rt) from a maximum of 3.98 to below 1 in the first wave of the pandemic in China. According
to the results of another study, the cumulative cases in the 371 cities of China showed a signifi-
cant relationship with the population inflows from Wuhan. For each 1% increase of population
inflows, the number of confirmed cases is predicted to increase by 5.98%. Consequently, the
quarantine policy has been effectively reduced the rate of disease spread within the country
[19]. Besides, studies indicated that the continuous UK government’s guidance to avoid non-
essential travel, combined with the closure of schools and reduced operation of London
Underground and national railway services, contributed to a continuous reduction in human
mobility and effectively contained the pandemic during the first wave [20]. Meng et al. [21]
developed a hybrid seasonal ARIMA intervention model to analyze the impacts of various con-
trol measures employed in the USA, China, and Singapore on air travel during the pandemic.
They reported that the short-term adverse economic effects of stricter and more effective

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

measures are large, but the long-term impacts would be milder. Another study investigated the
effectiveness of anti-COVID measures in Poland and their impacts on public transport. Results
indicated that the interventions had strongly decreased the public transport mode choice.
Besides, the government restrictions and media campaigns were more influential on human
mobility than the information on daily new COVID cases [22]. Cowling et al. [23] explored
the impacts of Hong Kong policies, including the travel ban, school closure, and public beha-
vioural changes. They stated that the daily effective reproduction number remained around
one during the policies implementation period, which denotes the measure’s effectiveness. On
the other hand, past experiences during the 2003 SARS outbreak in Singapore also indicated
that strict travel limitations have a slight effect unless paired with public health interventions
and behavioural changes that achieve a considerable reduction in the disease transmissibility
[24]. A comparative study was conducted on implemented COVID interventions in the six
developed countries, containing 418 policies, of which 244 were transport measures. The
results illustrated that none of the COVID interventions in public health and transport is asso-
ciated with a decline of cumulative deaths or cumulative infection cases. Solely 40% of mea-
sures were detected meaningful in reducing the daily new cases [25].

Methodological approaches
Since the emergence of the pandemic, studies have utilized various methods to predict the
COVID trends and identify the underlying factors. Choi and Ahn [26] predicted the daily
imported COVID cases in South Korea, using the daily mobile roaming data as the covariate.
The ARIMAX modelling technique outperformed the univariate ARIMA model based on the
forecast accuracy measures. The roaming data was associated with imported COVID cases
with a time lag of 12 days. Shao et al. [27] conducted mediation effect analysis using linear
regressions. The study illustrated that temperature affects the transmission rate of COVID,
influencing human mobility. The temperature influenced the transmission rate by a time lag
of 1 to 14 days. Ray et al. [28] implemented an extension of the SIR model with a Bayesian hier-
archical structure, where SIR stands for Susceptible, Infected and Recovered and illustrates the
three feasible states of the members of a population afflicted by a contagious disease. The study
suggested that at least 42 days of lockdown would be needed to reduce the cumulative COVID
cases in India. A comprehensive comparative study employed three growth curve-fitting mod-
els, two mathematical models (SEIR & IDEA), two statistical models (ARIMA, Holt’s exponen-
tial), and four machine/deep learning models (Neural Network, LSTM Networks, GANs, and
Random Forest) on ten COVID datasets of prominent regions worldwide [14]. The study indi-
cated that the machine/deep learning models almost reveal poor performance since the small
size and low complexity of the data reduces the chances of effectively training the models. On
the other hand, Holt’s exponential model and ARIMA almost outperformed other models.
Nonetheless, Holt’s procedure only worked well when low trends were seen in the data without
other components like cyclicity, seasonality, and randomness.
Several studies have also analyzed the COVID trends in Iran. Tran et al. [29] analyzed the
daily time trends of infections and death in Iran using the ARIMA model. The study predicted
the disappearance of the first wave of the epidemic. Other studies also employed the univariate
ARIMA method, analyzing the daily COVID trends in Iran [30, 31]. They predicted an expo-
nential increase for COVID trends during the first wave. Moftakhar et al. [30] compared the
forecast accuracy of ARIMA with artificial neural networks (ANNs) in predicting the total
daily infections in Iran. The results indicated that ARIMA significantly outperforms the
ANNs. Shen [32] adopted a logistic growth model on daily COVID cases in Iran, South Korea,
and China. Zarie et al. [11] developed a SIR epidemiological model to estimate the COVID

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

infections for the upcoming month. The authors adopted the transmission rate, recovery rate,
and mortality rate parameters from China’s outbreak. Besides, the classical SEIR model has
also been applied in Iran [33]. Talkhi et al. [34] compared the performance of ARIMA, Holt-
Winters, Prophet, multilayer perceptron, and extreme learning models. Holt’s exponential
model revealed the best fit for Iran. Another study predicted the COVID new cases using
machine-learning methods. They stipulated that the pandemic’s peak occurs 150 days after the
outburst [35]. Kafieh et al. [36] suggested the LSTM deep learning method, predicting COVID
trends in Iran. Studies also utilized the Gompertz and von Bertalanffy mathematical growth
models to predict the number of hospitalizations in Iran [37]. Despite the importance of multi-
variate time series analysis in the precise prediction of COVID trends and identifying the
simultaneous impacts of influential underlying factors, no study has adopted the dynamic mul-
tivariate forecasting framework in Iran. Besides, there are limited studies that analyzed the
association of human mobility and COVID trends worldwide [27, 38–40].

Materials and methods

Data processing
This research utilized the epidemiological data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for
Systems Science and Engineering COVID dashboard, which includes daily data on COVID
cases and deaths for all countries [1]. The Ministry of Roads and Urban Development
(MRUD) reports the traffic flow in intercity highways of Iran, recorded by loop detectors. The
daily traffic counts on rural highways of Iran were also collected from the dataset of MRUD.
The intercity travel pattern follows the holidays based on the Persian Calendar. So, the whole
data were aggregated weekly, based on the Iranian calendar (the Solar Hijri calendar). Finally,
the time series of weekly new cases and mortalities due to COVID disease and the weekly traf-
fic flow from Esfand 3, 1398 (February 22, 2020) to Shahrivar 12, 1400 (September 3, 2021)
were analyzed (e.g., 80 data points). The first 70 data points were used as the training sample,
while the remaining data were adopted as the test dataset.
The models were estimated in Eviews version 10, using the maximum likelihood method.
The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test was also calculated by Eviews software. Besides, the
Ljung-Box (LB) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) tests on the residuals, ACF/PACF, and time
series plot analysis was conducted by Minitab version 19.

Methodology
Box and Jenkins [41] developed the ARIMA model, which combines the autoregressive (AR)
and moving average (MA) models. Also, the differencing is explicitly included in the formula-
tion. The AR model describes a time series in which the current observation depends on its
preceding values, whereas the MA model describes a time series as a linear function of current
and previous random errors [42]. The structure of the model is as ARIMA (p, d, q), where p is
the autoregressive order, d is the number of nonseasonal differencing operations, and the q is
moving average order. The ARIMA model in terms of lag polynomials is written as follows
[43]:
d
φp ðLÞð1 BÞ yt ¼ θq ðLÞεt ð1Þ

where (1−B)dyt denotes the d order regular differenced dependent variable, removing non-sta-
tionarity from the series, and εt is the random error at time period t. The φp(L), and θq(L)
terms are the AR(P) and MA(q) models, respectively.

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

ARIMAX model [44] extends the ARIMA model, adding explanatory value to its counter-
part. Scholars refer to the ARIMAX model as “dynamic regression” since it accounts for the
dynamic impacts of exogenous variables [45]. The model is defined as follows [46]:
yt ¼ $0 I t þ βX þ N t ð2Þ

Where;
θq ðBÞut
Nt ¼ d
ð3Þ
φp ðBÞð1 BÞ

In which yt is the proper transformation of the dependent variable; It is the intervention com-
ponent, X is an array of exogenous variables, and Nt represents the error term, denoted by
ARIMA (p, d, q) model. Besides the φp, and θq components are the AR(p) and MA(q) opera-
tors, and B is the backshift operator. The ut is a Gaussian white noise error term.
The Box-Jenkins algorithm contains a three-step iterative modelling procedure, namely
model identification, parameter estimation, and diagnosis checking [41]. The stationarity is
one of the primary assumptions of ARIMA models, meaning that the statistical properties of
the series, such as mean, variance, and autocorrelation, should all be constant over time [42].
Firstly, the central assumption of stationarity of the time-series should be checked based
Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) [47] test. The null hypothesis of the ADF test is that there is
a unit root for the series, which in turn confirms the presence of non-stationarity in the series.
The non-stationarity problem could almost be handled simply by applying differencing. More-
over, the visual inspection of the time series and ACF/PACF plots are also employed to check
for stationarity. The next step is the model identification, when the order of parameters of the
SARIMA model is identified, investigating the autocorrelation function (ACF) and the partial
autocorrelation function (PACF) plots. After model postulation, the parameters are estimated
based on the maximum likelihood approach. Then, the candidate models are ranked based on
the lowest BIC and MAPE criteria.
The final step is diagnostic checking. If the model accurately explains the series, the residu-
als will represent white noise characteristics, containing zero-mean, constant variance, and
independence. The white noise properties of the residuals are visually inspected using the
ACF/PACF residual plots. Also, the independence and normality properties of residuals
should be tested based on the Ljung and Box (LB) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) tests,
respectively. The LB test [48] is general goodness of fit statistic. Indeed, it checks for the good-
ness of fit of the ACF function of residuals to the ACF of the white noise process. Hence, if the
LB statistic is not statistically significant, the null hypothesis of the white noise properties of
residuals will not be rejected. Finally, the observed and predicted weekly COVID cases and
deaths are compared to test the models’ forecast accuracy using the test dataset.

Results
To investigate the effectiveness of the smart travel ban (STB) policy, the interrupted time series
analysis framework was adopted. Firstly, the Box-Jenkins methodology was applied to develop
a traffic flow prediction model. Then the policy implementation date (the 40th week) was
entered as the intervention variable in an ARIMAX modelling framework to evaluate the sig-
nificance of the policy in the reduction of weekly intercity travels. Secondly, multivariate
COVID dynamic regressions were estimated. The intercity traffic flow and various lagged vari-
ables of weekly new confirmed cases were considered in the COVID mortality prediction
model as exogenous variables. On the other hand, the intercity traffic was the only regressor in

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Fig 1. Weekly new COVID deaths and cases (� 102) and weekly intercity traffic flow (� 104) in Iran.
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the new COVID cases model. Finally, the COVID forecasting tools were utilized to investigate
the significance of the direct effects of the STB policy on the underlying COVID trends.
Our main objective is to identify the best forecasting models for the weekly new cases and
deaths time-series datasets. To compare and validate the models, each dataset was separated
into two parts. The first 70 data points from Esfand 3, 1398 (February 22, 2020) to Tir 4, 1400
(June 25, 2021) were used as the training sample to fit the models. The subsequent ten weeks
were employed as the testing sample for assessing the models’ forecast accuracy. Finally, the
performance of the models was compared, using the lower Bayesian information criterion
(BIC), the lower mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and the higher coefficient of deter-
mination as accuracy measures.

Smart travel ban policy & intercity travel pattern

The time series plot of the weekly intercity traffic is illustrated in Fig 1. The figure illustrates
that after the policy implementation, a reduction in intercity travels is evident. Although there
is no evidence for the non-stationarity in the mean or variance, the stationarity test was imple-
mented. The ADF test did not reject the null hypothesis of non-stationarity in the original
series (see Table 1). Hence, a Box-Cox transformation was applied with λ = 0 to stabilize the
mean and variance. The resulted series was stationary as the ADF test rejected the test’s null
hypothesis at a 90% confidence level (see Table 1). Fig 2 indicates the ACF/PACF plots of the

Table 1. P-values of statistical tests for stationarity.

Time series ADF test
Weekly intercity traffic flow 0.13
Log (Weekly intercity traffic flow) 0.10
Weekly new COVID cases 0.05
Weekly new COVID deaths 0.00
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Fig 2. The ACF and PACF plots of the log-transformed weekly intercity traffic time series.
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transformed series. The ACF plot denotes an exponential decay form. Besides, the PACF plot
tails off after the first two significant spikes, suggesting that the series follows a pure AR (2)
process. To ensure the adequacy of the identified model, various competing ARIMA models
were developed, but none of the estimated alternatives had statistically significant parameters.
Finally, the only fit models with significant parameters were the ARIMA (2,0,0) and the
ARIMA (2,0,0) with the intervention dummy variable (ARIMAX) models. The estimated
models are detailed in Table 2.
Reviewing Table 2, all the independent variables are statistically significant at a 1% signifi-
cance level. Moreover, the ARIMA model reveals an R-squared value of 0.763, which denotes

Table 2. Intercity traffic flow prediction model for log transformed time-series.
ARIMA ARIMAX
Coef. t-stat Coef. t-stat
Explanatory variables
Intervention variable (It). - - -0.149 -3.70
AR (1) 1.138 12.68 1.220 16.15
AR (2) -0.335 2.67 -0.332 -3.71
Constant 7.030 160.15 7.110 115.65
Descriptive statistics
Length of series 70 80
Log-likelihood 113.73 133.53
Accuracy (within sample)
Bayesian information criterion (BIC) -3.007 -3.064
Mean absolute % error (MAPE) 0.433 0.433
Mean absolute deviation (MAD) 0.030 0.030
Root mean square error (RMSE) 0.047 0.045
R2 0.763 0.767
Diagnosis Check of Residuals
Ljung and Box (LB) (K = 18) 1.17 0.14 7.61 0.55
Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) 0.15 <1.46 0.13 <1.46
Forecast Accuracy
Out of sample MAPE (%) 0.429 -
Likelihood Ratio (H0: It Coef. = 0) 39.6 > χ2α = .01,df = 1 = 7.87
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Fig 3. The ACF and PACF plots of the residuals of the ARIMA (2,0,0) intercity traffic prediction model.
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that the current values of traffic flow could be well explained only by considering the autocor-
relations in the time series. Besides, the likelihood ratio test illustrates that the ARIMA model
with the intervention variable (ARIMAX) outperforms the univariate model, which confirms
the efficiency of the STB policy in reducing intercity travel. Moreover, the MAPE criterion
demonstrates that the developed instruments properly reconstruct observations with less than
1% mean absolute error in train and test samples. The t-test of the intervention variable con-
firms a significant reduction in the weekly intercity traffic after the policy implementation.
The coefficient value of the intervention dummy is found to be -0.149, indicating that the
introduction of the STB policy reduces the intercity traffic by about 29% if all other factors
remain constant.
Regarding the model diagnosis check, the Gaussian white noise distribution assumption of
the residuals was investigated. The ACF/PACF plots of the residuals validate the adequacy of
the ARIMA (2,0,0) model (see Fig 3). The figure indicates no significant ACF/PACF coeffi-
cients at any lag, meaning no serial correlation exists among the residuals. Besides, the KS test
does not reject the null hypothesis of the normal distribution of the error term (see Table 2).
Consequently, the developed models capture the underlying process properly. The LB test also
confirms the overall adequacy of the developed models, as the test statistics are not statistically
significant at a 5 percent significance level (see Table 2).

Dynamic regressions for weekly COVID new deaths time-series

Fig 1 illustrates the weekly trends of new COVID cases/deaths and intercity traffic flow in
Iran. The off-peaks of the intercity traffic are almost associated with peaks of COVID infec-
tions and deaths. This fact is related to the dynamic properties of the travel ban policy in Iran.
Indeed, whenever the COVID pandemic peaks up, the travel bans automatically become stric-
ter, which in turn results in a gradual decay of the pandemic wave with a time lag. One of the
main objectives of this study is to find out this time lag that is crucial information for health
authorities to evaluate the effectiveness of the intercity travel ban policies in containing the
pandemic. Fig 1 also illustrates that the weekly COVID deaths time series follows the new
COVID cases with a time lag of one to two weeks. Hence, considering the lagged variables of
weekly COVID cases in the COVID mortalities prediction model would be wise advice.
The time series plot of the weekly COVID mortalities suggests that the time series would be
stationary in mean and variance. Since no significant trend or fluctuations in the variance is
detected over time. Also, the ADF test rejects the null hypothesis of non-stationarity at a 1%

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Fig 4. The ACF and PACF plots of the original weekly new COVID deaths time series.
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significance level for the COVID deaths time series (see Table 1). Fig 4 indicates the ACF/PACF
plots of the original series for the first 18 lags (e.g., a quarter of the total period [49]. The ACF plot
exhibits an exponential decay behaviour, and only the two first lags’ autocorrelation coefficients
are outside the confidence interval. This behaviour evokes a pure stationary AR (2) process.
The postulated univariate ARIMA (2,0,0) model was estimated using the maximum likeli-
hood method in EViews software. Various lagged variables of new COVID cases were then
entered into the base model in a stepwise regression modelling framework. New COVID cases
were aggregated on the weekly, biweekly, and monthly time frames and with different time
lags. Finally, the aggregated biweekly new COVID cases with one-week time lag were the only
significant predictor of weekly new COVID deaths. This means that the number of weekly
new coronavirus deaths is a function of the number of new confirmed cases in the second and
third weeks before. The same procedure was adopted to identify the lagged effects of weekly
intercity traffic on the new weekly confirmed COVID deaths. The only significant regressor
was the weekly traffic flow with a time lag of five weeks. The developed multivariate COVID
mortality forecasting model is detailed in Table 3.
Results illustrate that all the explanatory variables in both models are significant predictors
of the dependent variable at a 95% confidence level. Besides, the exogenous variables repre-
sented a low VIF equal to 1.14 in the ARIMAX model, indicating no collinearity problem.
Moreover, the coefficient of determination of the univariate ARIMA (2,0,0) model is 0.96,
which denotes that the developed model adequately reconstructs the observations in the train-
ing sample. However, the forecast accuracy of the univariate model is not acceptable regarding
the high value of the MAPE criterion in the test sample. In contrast, the ARIMAX model’s
out-of-range prediction power is proper as its MAPE criterion is around 9% in the test sample.
The ARIMAX model outperforms its univariate counterpart. Since the MAPE criterion of the
ARIMA model is halved in the training sample and reduced by 82% in the test sample when
the lagged effects of new confirmed COVID cases and intercity traffic were considered exoge-
nous variables. Moreover, the likelihood ratio test also confirms the significance of the partial
contribution of the two exogenous variables in the ARIMAX model. The intercity traffic repre-
sents a coefficient value of 36.9 which states that each one million higher intercity traffic (ffi9%
�
average weekly traffic) is associated with 37 more weekly new COVID deaths (ffi3% � aver-
age weekly new deaths) with a time lag of 5 weeks. The coefficient of biweekly new confirmed
cases also suggests that each ten thousand biweekly new COVID cases (ffi8% � average
biweekly new cases), on average, is associated with 70 weekly new COVID deaths (ffi5% �
average weekly new deaths) with a time lag of one week, if other factors remain constant.

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Table 3. Weekly new COVID deaths forecasting models.

ARIMA ARIMAX
Coef. t-stat Coef. t-stat
Explanatory variables
Biweekly new confirmed cases (β1) - - 70.018 5.12
(� 10−4) (Time lag: 1 week)
Weekly intercity traffic (� 10−6) (β2) - - 36.881 2.05
(Time lag: 5 weeks)
AR (1) 1.694 26.94 1.663 25.92
AR (2) -0.795 -13.29 -0.745 -12.23
Constant 1154.355 5.29 - -
Descriptive statistics
Length of series 70 70
Log-likelihood -456.01 -431.07
Accuracy (within-sample)
Bayesian information criterion (BIC) 13.27 12.99
Mean absolute % error (MAPE) 21.37 9.49
Mean absolute deviation (MAD) 99.29
Root mean square error (RMSE) 39.20 129.39
R2 0.961 0.971
Diagnosis Check of Residuals
Ljung and Box (LB) (K = 18) 6.45 -0.59 8.56 -0.45
Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) 0.11 2.22 0.07 <1.46
Forecast Accuracy
Out of sample MAPE (%) 51.46 9.183
Likelihood ratio test (H0: β1, β2 = 0) 49.88 > χ2α = .01,df = 2 = 10.60
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276276.t003

The diagnostic check to validate the adequacy of the developed models showed that they
are adequate for the time series forecasting of weekly new COVID deaths in Iran, as is evident
in the plots of residuals’ ACF/PACF shown in Fig 5. The figure indicates no significant ACF/
PACF coefficients, which means no serial correlation exists among the residuals. Besides, the
LB test validates the overall adequacy of the models since the test’s null hypothesis is not
rejected, as tabulated in Table 3. The KS test rejects the normality assumption of the distribu-
tion of the error term in the univariate model at a 5% significance level. On the contrary, the
hypothesis of Gaussian white noise distribution for the ARIMAX model’s residuals is con-
firmed as the null hypothesis of the test is not rejected at a 99% confidence level. This suggests
that taking the two regressors of new COVID cases and intercity traffic into account is vital in
understanding the COVID deaths trends.

Dynamic regressions for weekly COVID new cases time-series

Fig 1 shows the weekly time trends of new COVID confirmed cases which follow nearly the
patterns in the intercity traffic time series. The off-peaks of the intercity traffic almost triggers
off-peaks of COVID cases with some time lag. Moreover, no significant non-stationarity in the
mean or variance is evident. The ADF test was also employed to investigate stationarity. The
hypothesis test did not reject the null hypothesis of non-stationarity at a 95% confidence level
(see Table 1). Besides, the ACF plot of the original series confirms the stationarity as only the
first lags coefficients are significant (see Fig 6).
Regarding the model identification, the ACF plot of the weekly COVID new cases time
series in Fig 6 illustrates an exponential decay. Besides, the PACF plot tails off after two

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Fig 5. The residuals ACF/PACF plots of the ARIMAX and ARIMA weekly COVID deaths prediction models.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276276.g005

significant spikes at the first lags, suggesting that the series follows a pure AR (2) process. To
ensure the adequacy of the identified model, various competing ARIMA models were devel-
oped and compared based on the parsimony, the significance of the parameters, and the lowest
BIC values (See S1 Table). Finally, the best fit model with significant parameters was the
ARIMA (2,0,0) model and its ARIMAX extension. The developed models are detailed in
Table 4.

Fig 6. The ACF and PACF plots of the original weekly new confirmed COVID cases time series.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276276.g006

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

Table 4. Weekly new COVID cases forecasting models.

ARIMA ARIMAX
Coef. t-stat Coef. t-stat
Explanatory variables
Weekly intercity traffic (� 10−6) (β1) - - 1273.35 1.73
(Time lag: 2 weeks)
AR (1) 1.599 30.45 1.607 28.07
AR (2) -0.675 -11.12 -0.683 -10.49
Constant 44078.87 2.47 30274.39 1.65
Descriptive statistics
Length of series 70 70
Log-likelihood -732.32 -731.39
Accuracy (within-sample)
Bayesian information criterion 21.167 21.100
(BIC)
Mean absolute % error (MAPE) 14.195 14.061
Mean absolute deviation (MAD) 5076.135 5075.110
Root mean square error (RMSE) 8240.641 8185.221
R2 0.952 0.954
Diagnosis Check of Residuals
Ljung and Box (LB) (K = 18) 16.18 0.01 16.09 0.18
Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) 0.13 1.65 0.11 1.71
Forecast Accuracy
Out of sample MAPE (%) 64.12 63.93
Likelihood ratio test 1.86 < χ2α = .05,df = 1 = 5.024
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276276.t004

Reviewing Table 4, all the independent variables are statistically significant at a 10% signifi-
cance level. Moreover, the ARIMA model indicates an R-squared value of 0.952, which denotes
that over 95% of the variations in the current weekly new COVID cases are explained only by
considering the serial correlations in the underlying time series. Besides, the multivariate ARI-
MAX model outperforms the univariate model slightly, regarding the increase in the coeffi-
cient of determination and the log-likelihood value. Nonetheless, the likelihood ratio rejects
the hypothesis of statistical significance of the fit superiority of the ARIMAX model at a 5%
significance level. Meanwhile, the significant coefficient value of the weekly intercity traffic
demonstrates that each one million more intercity traffic is associated with an approximate
1273 more weekly new confirmed COVID cases after two weeks, given that other influential
factors remain constant. Moreover, the MAPE criterion demonstrates that the developed
instruments properly reconstruct observations with only about 14% mean absolute error. On
the other hand, the out-of-range prediction power of the Box-Jenkins methodology was not
appropriate based on the MAPE criterion, although the developed model performs well in the
short-term predictions. This is not surprising as the influential factors on the COVID trends
are not limited to the intercity traffic pattern. Considering factors such as the percentage of
compliance with health protocols will strengthen the model’s ability to make medium-term
predictions based on causal relationships if such data is available.
Finally, the model diagnosis checking is conducted by testing the white noise characteristics
of the residuals in terms of non-autocorrelation, zero mean, and stationarity in the variance.
The ACF/PACF plots of the residuals do not represent any significant coefficients at a 5% sig-
nificant level except the first lag (see Fig 7). Besides, the LB and KS test results also confirm the
white noise characteristics of the residuals for both models (see Table 4).

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

Fig 7. The residuals ACF/PACF of ARIMA and ARIMAX models (new weekly COVID cases).
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Discussion
Drawing on the COVID trends and loop detectors’ intercity traffic datasets, this research con-
tributes the first empirical study on the dynamic association of intercity travel patterns and
COVID spread in Iran. This research also evaluates a new non-pharmaceutical intervention
(NPI) with economy-friendly features applicable for Low-to-Middle-Income Countries
(LMICs). The most important contribution of this paper is its concentration on the associa-
tions between several lagged effects of intercity traffic and COVID trends. Realizing these
delayed effects provides crucial information for health authorities to evaluate the effectiveness
of the human mobility restriction policies on containing the pandemic. The study also com-
pared the ARIMAX modelling framework with its univariate counterpart based on the in-sam-
ple and out-of-range forecast accuracy measures.
The results indicated that a one million increase in the weekly intercity traffic triggers a 2%
(1273 new weekly COVID cases) increase in the weekly new confirmed COVID cases with a
time lag of two weeks which confirms the previous findings. Wang et al. [39] studied the rela-
tionships between COVID spread and human mobility in Australia. They reported a 7 to 14
days period between lockdown policy implementation and the reduction in the virus spread.
Zhu et al. [40] investigated the mediation effects of air quality on the association of human
mobility and COVID infections in China. The results indicated that a unit increase in the
human mobility index is associated with a 6.45% increase in daily COVID confirmed cases at
lag 0–14. Another study also reported that the effects of social distancing on decreasing trans-
mission are not perceptible for at least 9–12 days after implementation [38]. The authors stated

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

that this lag time would reflect the time for symptoms to manifest after infection, worsen, and
be reported [38]. Moreover, this two-week lag time might also be related to the incubation
period of the disease, which has been reported in various epidemiological studies to have a
maximum of 14 days [50, 51].
The results also illustrated that each one million intercity traffic is associated with a 3%
increase (37 weekly new infections) in the weekly new confirmed COVID deaths with a time
lag of 5 weeks. These results are in line with the literature findings, which almost reported a
delay of around 21 days between new COVID infections and deaths [52, 53]. Moreover, based
on the findings of the current study, a time lag of 2 weeks was detected between an increase in
the intercity traffic and the rise in new confirmed COVID cases. Hence, a time lag of 5 weeks
between the intercity traffic and COVID deaths is interpretable and reasonable. Moreover,
each ten thousand biweekly new confirmed COVID cases were associated with 70 weekly new
COVID deaths (ffi5% � average weekly new deaths) with a time lag of one week. It should be
noted that the biweekly new COVID cases were associated with new weekly COVID deaths,
meaning that an average of two-week periods exists between the new COVID infections and
deaths. Based on the literature, it was expected that a longer lag time would have been seen.
Nonetheless, recent studies indicated that in countries that have not incorporated adequate
measures to contain the outcomes of the disease, shorter periods, even negative time lags
between the infections and deaths’ peaks, are pretty reasonable [54].
The interrupted time series analysis framework was employed to investigate the direct contri-
bution of the STB policy in the reduction of intercity travels and also COVID infections/deaths
trends. The intervention variable didn’t indicate a significant association between the STB policy
implementation and COVID new cases and deaths time trends. On the other hand, the inter-
rupted time series analysis revealed that the policy declines the intercity traffic by 29%. Besides,
the significance of the lagged effects of weekly intercity traffic on COVID trends was confirmed in
this research. Although the current fines have reduced intercity travel during the intensification
periods of the pandemic, this reduction is not sufficient. So, the results strongly recommend that
health authorities increase the enforcements, considering the significant associations between the
intercity travels and COVID spread. Moreover, adherence to health protocols and social distanc-
ing should be adopted in conjunction with the STB policy to achieve acceptable results in control-
ling the epidemic. In line with this statement, a recent study reported that the state-level mobility
restrictions in the US, which dropped the mobility level by 35–63% relative to the usual condi-
tions, were less effective in containing the COVID transmission compared with the individual-
level social distancing behaviours [38]. Nonetheless, if such policies were not adopted, the disease
transmission would have been evolved on a much more worrying trend.
This research also introduced dynamic multivariate COVID forecasting tools for Iran’s epi-
demic time trends. The weekly new COVID mortality time series indicated that the ARIMAX
model outperforms the univariate ARIMA model based on the MAPE criterion. The MAPE
criterion of the univariate model was halved in the training sample and reduced by 82% in the
test sample when the lagged effects of intercity traffic and new confirmed COVID cases were
considered as exogenous variables. Consequently, the ignorance of existing causal links with
explanatory variables in the univariate models would result in biased estimates, especially in
the out-of-sample predictions. On the other hand, in the case of weekly new COVID cases
time series, the ARIMAX model with the intercity traffic as the only exogenous regressor did
not perform better compared with the univariate model. Accounting for the variables such as
the percentage of compliance with health protocols might improve the predictive power of the
models; If such information is available.
There are some limitations in this research, which should be considered when interpreting
the results. First, the information on human mobility was not available for different travel

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

modes and purposes. Analyzing the contribution of each intercity travel mode in the transmis-
sion of the disease would bring valuable insights for policymakers. Second, no data was avail-
able on the percentage of community compliance with health protocols. Undoubtedly, if such
a crucial factor is considered, in addition to increasing the accuracy of the models, it will be
possible to evaluate the efficiency of the STB policy in different levels of compliance with
health protocols. Third, although the statistical models indicated appropriate forecasting per-
formance, advanced machine learning methods might better capture the nonlinear effects in
the COVID time series.

Conclusion
Drawing on the weekly new confirmed COVID cases/deaths and intercity highways traffic
datasets, this study presents national-level empirical research to examine how the changes in
intercity travel patterns are adherent to the STB policy and how such changes affect COVID
spread. The following were arrived at in this research: (1) the STB policy declined the intercity
travel significantly by around 29%. Moreover, the findings confirm a significant association
between the traffic pattern and COVID trends. Nevertheless, this reduction in human mobility
is not well enough to have an evident effect on COVID mortalities or confirmed COVID infec-
tions. (2) A one million increase in the weekly intercity traffic triggers a 2% increase in the
weekly new confirmed COVID cases with a time lag of two weeks which is interpretable
regarding the 14 days incubation period. (3) Each one million intercity traffic is associated
with a 3% increase in the weekly new confirmed COVID deaths with a time lag of 5 weeks.
The 3-weeks lag time between COVID infections and deaths in the literature and the 2-weeks
incubation period confirm this finding. (4) The multivariate ARIMAX method outperforms
the univariate Box-Jenkins approach in the COVID mortality prediction model, accounting
for the simultaneous impacts of lagged variables of intercity traffic and new confirmed
COVID cases. Indeed, neglecting these causal associations in the model development results in
the model misspecification, which in turn triggers biased estimates of future COVID time
trends, especially in out-of-sample forecasts.
The developed models could be utilized by transport authorities and health policymakers to
predict future time trends of the COVID pandemic and evaluate the effectiveness of newly
implemented interventions. Besides, the study introduces the ARIMAX method as a valuable
framework to investigate the explicit effects of a specific contributing factor on COVID trends;
while controlling for underlying autocorrelation and dynamic impacts of other exogenous
variables.
Although the Box-Jenkins method efficiently captured the linear dependencies in the
COVID time series, the COVID observations would also be spatially correlated. The results
highlighted the importance of intercity human mobility variations on COVID disease spread.
These findings suggest that the spatial dependencies might cause COVID infections in spatial
proximity to have similar spread intensity. Nonetheless, the current literature on applying sta-
tistical and machine learning techniques to COVID data considers the observations as inde-
pendent components, which might result in biased parameter estimates and inferences. Future
research should shed light on these spatial associations, adopting advanced deep neural net-
work models, such as Graph Convolutional Networks (GCN). Moreover, a richer problem
space with more exogenous variables at the disaggregate level would bring further insights on
potential differences between provinces. As the health infrastructures differ between provinces,
the province-level economic attributes might have a moderation effect into the association of
human mobility with COVID deaths trends.

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PLOS ONE How do the smart travel ban policy and intercity travel pattern affect COVID-19 trends

Supporting information
S1 Table. Weekly new COVID cases forecasting models, comparing ARIMA alternatives.
(DOCX)
S1 File. Weekly time trend of intercity traffic flow, and COVID trends.
(XLSX)

Author Contributions
Conceptualization: Habibollah Nassiri, Seyed Iman Mohammadpour.
Data curation: Seyed Iman Mohammadpour, Mohammad Dahaghin.
Formal analysis: Habibollah Nassiri, Seyed Iman Mohammadpour, Mohammad Dahaghin.
Investigation: Habibollah Nassiri.
Methodology: Habibollah Nassiri, Seyed Iman Mohammadpour, Mohammad Dahaghin.
Software: Mohammad Dahaghin.
Supervision: Habibollah Nassiri.
Validation: Habibollah Nassiri, Seyed Iman Mohammadpour, Mohammad Dahaghin.
Writing – original draft: Seyed Iman Mohammadpour, Mohammad Dahaghin.
Writing – review & editing: Habibollah Nassiri, Seyed Iman Mohammadpour.

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