The spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) since the turn of 2020 highlighted among many aspects the highly interconnected nature of 21st century globalization, allowing the virus to reach nearly all corners of the globe over a matter of weeks.
Drastic behavioural and lifestyle changes have been adopted on a global scale almost overnight, shifting the way we work and live, consequently redefining our transportation needs and posing a new and complex array of challenges.
Transport was perceived as a major risk in the spread of the virus. Now it will have to support different needs of the population throughout the various stages of recovery while containing the risk of a resurgence of the disease.
This raises a fundamental question: how will society manage the mobility of people and goods during the pandemic recovery and post-pandemic period?
A new life during lockdowns
Mobility restrictions in response to COVID-19 have resulted in drastic changes in travel behaviour. Swift lockdowns across the globe have forced millions of workers to work from home overnight, and schools to shift to e-learning. With the closure of bricks and mortar shops and restaurants during the containment period, consumers flocked to online shopping and food delivery, even in developing countries where the penetration rate for online services was low before COVID-19.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, transport contributed to about 23% of global carbon emissions. Road traffic and aviation are the main contributors of emissions from transport, accounting for 72% and 11% of the transport sector greenhouse gas emissions, respectively. Although drastic lockdown measures around the world have brought world economies to their knees, satellites have recorded compelling data on how the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and air pollutants have fallen drastically, bringing clear blue skies to many cities.
For example, in Manila, where my organization, the Asian Development Bank, is headquartered, traffic plunged 80% overnight after the lockdown was declared on 15 March. Elsewhere, in New York City, one of the cities in the US worst affected by the virus, a 35% reduction in traffic levels was reported in March due to restrictions on non-essential travel. This resulted in about 50% fall in carbon monoxide emissions, which are primarily contributed by traffic; and a corresponding 5–10% drop in CO2. Similar trends have been observed in northern Italy, Spain, and the UK.
Public transport is a more efficient, affordable—and in many cases, green—way to travel than personal vehicles. But under pandemic conditions, there are naturally concerns about physical proximity while riding public transport. For example, as the lockdown deepened across the People’s Republic of China (PRC), demand on buses and subways fell by about half in March–April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, while walking and cycling showed a 25% increase.
The challenges of reopening
Initial trends in cities that have reopened show drops in public transport use, although this decrease varies depending on available mobility options. As the experience of developing Asia shows, the poor suffer the most since they more often lack access to private modes of transport. If walking or cycling is not an option, then their choice is to continue using public transport or not to travel.
In the case of Beijing, analyses suggest that traffic levels have increased steadily since initial dips in February 2020 while public transport dropped by half. By early April 2020, congestion exceeded the same period in 2019. This trend is a cause for concern since if it continues and is seen on a wider scale, it could set back decades of effort in promoting sustainable development and more efficient means of urban mobility. On the positive side, Beijing has seen a 25% increase in cycling while cycling sharing schemes have shown a 33% increase.
Beijing’s rapid resurgence of traffic holds an important lesson—there is only a short window of opportunity for cities to implement low-carbon alternatives that lock-in the improved air quality conditions that were gained during the movement restrictions at the peak of the pandemic.
There is no doubt that some rebound to old ways of working, learning and leisure will be seen after the containment period. However, the post-pandemic era affords the opportunity to maintain and develop further new practices.
Smarter transportation to restore public confidence
The pandemic has also highlighted the need for more robust transport system that is “green” and resilient to future disasters. Technological advances, big data, artificial intelligence, digitalization, automation, and renewables and electric power can potentially offer fresh innovations to tackle changing needs, giving rise to smarter transportation.
There are two key challenges ahead. The first is how to address capacity on public transport to maintain safe distancing requirements. The second is how best to regain public confidence to return to public transport, especially given that the poor in developing countries mostly do not have the option of switching to private transport.
More effort is needed to reassure public transport users of safety and demonstrate clean and safe public transport. The confidence of passengers on public transport should be restored through protective measures such as cleaning, thermal scanning, tracking and face covering. Further study to explore how protective and preventive measures can be stepped up to allow relaxation of safe distancing requirements would help mitigate capacity challenges. A possible future trend may be consolidation of services and rationalization of routes to better serve the emerging travel demand patterns and practices.
As countries enter the “recovery” phase, further preventive and precautionary operating measures and advanced technology should be implemented to enable contactless processes and facilitate agile response. Demand management measures can facilitate crowd control in public transport systems and airports. As a complementary measure, non-motorized transport capacity could be expanded to absorb spillover demand from public transport, as has been seen in the PRC.
Mass public transport is the lifeblood of most economies. Government policies and financial support are essential during this period, to enable public transport operators to stay viable and continue to support the movement of passengers and goods in a sustainable way.
Delivering greener infrastructure
More sustainable design and construction methods, early warning systems and disaster response plans need to be put in place to enhance governments’ readiness in responding better to future disasters.
In most cases, existing narrow streetscapes of densely populated urban cities are not adequate to meet safe distancing requirements. To promote more use of non-motorized transport modes, existing infrastructure would need to be re-configured to comply with new requirements.
Many European cities have already embarked on ambitious expansion plans to promote walking and cycling through reallocation of existing public spaces and road space, and retrofitting them either with semi-permanent or permanent structures to enhance safe distanced walking and cycling facilities quickly. Berlin was one of the first cities to have substantially expanded its cycle networks in mid-March 2020. Pop-up bicycle lanes have even cropped up in less traditional locations in Asia and South America. In the wake of the COVID-19 experience, Manila has announced plans to make bicycle lanes a permanent feature on some of its busiest roads while Bogota is expanding its existing bicycle lanes. But obviously across developing countries, this trend is still nowhere near its potential in terms of scale.
Conclusion: towards a new normal
Transport planners, operators and policymakers must now face how to respond to a “new normal.”
There has not been a more pressing time than now to rethink and reimagine the options needed to address the problems that we are trying to solve, and to link these with long-term sustainable objectives.
There is a new opportunity for public transport to now play an important role in promoting a better balance. It can achieve this through more active promotion of clean vehicles, provision of quality travel alternatives in public transport, and promotion of non-motorized modes such as walking and cycling to enhance overall health and wellbeing.
Our actions today will impact our environment and quality of life for future decades to come.
