India, May 29 -- A new study in the Journal of Urban Economics showed that when traffic gets worse, people are more likely to stop at fast food places instead of going to grocery stores.
Researchers from Vanderbilt University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Illinois collected and analyzed data from 2017 to 2019. They tracked visits to nearly 21,000 food locations in Los Angeles County, including fast-food spots, dine-in restaurants, convenience stores, and supermarkets. This was done using smartphone location data from millions of people.
Along with food visits, they also looked at traffic data from more than 2,500 highway sensors to measure how much extra time drivers spent in slow-moving traffic. Since LA drivers re...