The transportation sector, like all sectors, has been hit hard by the corona virus. This is not the usual disruption of supply due to traffic accidents or strikes. This time the problem is lack of demand.
When the world finally recovers from the pandemic and travel restrictions are lifted, demand, which has been held in check all this time, will suddenly surge, as if to make up for lost time. But when that time comes, the transportation sector may have changed considerably, as months of lockdown have permanently altered our behavioral patterns. So how will this crisis affect the way we travel in the future?The short-term changes are obvious: Only a limited number of people who have to travel can do so. With the exception of transporting food and medicine, travel has already fallen sharply. In particular, the number of people traveling by private car and in every car has decreased significantly, and the number of people walking and cycling is limited.
An even more serious decline has been in public transportation. Airlines and airports have cut services and staffing levels in response to government subsidies, while bus companies have followed suit. Private train companies in the UK have already been effectively nationalized.
The effects of this will be long-term. While travel to visit relatives and friends is relatively unaffected, other types of travel will change dramatically. In particular, business travel by air and long-distance train journeys will be replaced by video conferencing. As individuals and organizations get used to working remotely, commuting rates may fall.
It is very likely that the trend of store closures will accelerate, perhaps permanently, as home delivery services take their place. What will happen to leisure traffic is a little more uncertain. Will movie, bar and restaurant visits increase rapidly after the pandemic, or will people have changed their habits permanently?
At least in the medium term, people will be more reluctant to share, and all this means less air travel, less long-distance train travel and more walking, cycling and single occupancy car travel. For the same reason, for those who have other options, taxis, commuter trains and buses can also be ruled out.
Meanwhile, the biggest impact on the supply economy is likely to be the replacement of a significant portion of real transportation with "virtual journeys". Recently, many industries have struggled to source the components and raw materials needed for production, especially with factories in China shutting down in the first quarter of 2020. This has exposed how vulnerable many businesses are, leading some to reassess the way their products and services move from supplier to customer.
What all this means for society is complex. At the local level, more use of personal vehicles and less use of public transport can lead to traffic congestion, delays, accidents, air and noise pollution, and social isolation. However, these effects may be offset by the replacement of some travel by internet-based activities.
Empty seats on the Glasgow subway, March 2020. Andrew Milligan/PA
In a post-corona world, as people move from airplanes to trains to the Internet, long journeys, energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions will all fall. As long as the internet has the bandwidth to cope with these developments. Overall, it can be said that the pandemic will mitigate the environmental impacts of the transportation system, perhaps at the expense of slower economic growth.
In the future, public transport operators will have to reassure users that they will not be infected. This means more cleaning, more protective gear, improved air filters and less frequent seating. This crisis could force transportation providers to rethink how services are delivered at the route and network level. More fundamentally, the pandemic offers an opportunity to take a fresh look at public transport as a whole, both in terms of business models and how the sector is responding to the conditions of a rapidly changing market.
For the state, this is a rare opportunity to proactively shape how transportation services are delivered and used, and to support and promote the most efficient modes of transportation. Because the extreme and intractable nature of the measures introduced to tackle the pandemic requires us to rethink every aspect of our lifestyles. As a result, the habits and attitudes that underlie many decisions, such as how, where, when and why we travel, can break down.
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So how can buses, trains and other public transport be encouraged, putting walking and cycling first and private cars last? One of the main ways is to allocate lanes for pedestrians, cyclists and buses separate from cars. Other options to improve public transport include expropriation or more direct forms of public sector control, subsidies for socially necessary services such as rural bus routes, and charging single-passenger vehicles entering congested areas.
Governments can also better integrate services by running information campaigns promoting the "right choice". This can be done through Mobility-as-a-Service applications, where transportation service providers offer "packages" similar to those of mobile phone operators. These can include trip planning, booking and one-off or subscription-type forms of payment for different modes of transport (Think about it: Ten train rides, 50 Uber rides and unlimited bike rentals per year).
This article was originally published on April 2, 2020 by Will de Freitas.