Passenger traffic in Polish seaports in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on the global economy and disrupted daily life across many regions of the world. Restrictions imposed at the time, such as the closure of national borders and restrictions on mobility, led to unprecedented challenges for the transportation sector and related tourism services compared with any prior crisis. This disruption also affected maritime passenger transport in Poland. This article aims to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on passenger traffic in Polish seaports and to develop mathematical models that could support management in the event of future epidemic threats. Three different models are proposed, which showed that the epidemic crisis resulted in a significant decline in passenger traffic at Polish seaports. The most accurate proved to be the SARIMA model. The Holt-Winters model also demonstrated high fitting and predictive performance. In turn, the STL model offered intriguing insights with its time series decomposition, enabling a detailed analysis of individual components. A comparative analysis of the proposed models confirms their usefulness in forecasting passenger traffic in seaports in the face of disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These models can be an effective decision-support tool, helping to reduce the negative effects of future epidemic threats.