{"id":6537,"date":"2020-05-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.systra.com\/uk\/?post_type=expert_insights&p=6537"},"modified":"2023-09-14T15:41:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-14T13:41:40","slug":"transport-related-decision-making-for-a-post-covid19-world","status":"publish","type":"expert_insights","link":"https:\/\/www.systra.com\/uk\/expert_insights\/transport-related-decision-making-for-a-post-covid19-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Transport-related decision-making for a post-Covid19 world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The big questions – what are the likely medium and long-term effects of the Covid19 pandemic on our transport networks, and how will these affect our transport investment decisions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The problem<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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As well as the direct terrible impacts of the Covid19 pandemic on those who catch the virus and\/or lose loved ones to its effects, the pandemic and the \u2018lockdown\u2019 measures designed to tackle it have had unprecedented impacts on the economy, travel demand and travel behaviour – unprecedented in terms of the scale of the reduction on total travel and the duration of this slump in travel demand, drop-off, combined with unusual impacts on mode choice, particularly a reduction in the attractiveness of (crowded) public transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Previous events (like the \u2018Great Storm\u2019 of October 1987, the Hatfield train crash in 2000, the banking crisis in 2008 and subsequent recession, and the \u2018Beast from the East\u2019 in February 2018 etc) created impacts significant enough to spot in travel time series (and\/or be remembered by the travelling public), but none of these changed as many of the assumptions underlying traditional transport models as the present pandemic and the measures being used to tackle it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Even before Covid19, transport planners in the UK1234<\/sup> were conscious of the increasing difficulty of predicting future travel behaviour, with influences such as the climate emergency (and the commitment for the country to achieve \u2018net zero\u2019 emissions by 2050, 2045 in Scotland, Intelligent Mobility, changes in licence-holding and car ownership, the rise of online shopping etc.) all being cited as being sufficiently \u2018disruptive\u2019 to travel trends to warrant some consideration of alternatives to essentially trend-based forecasting of travel behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The crux of the problem is not quantifying how much travel (emissions, air quality, public transport revenue and activity levels) changed during lockdown, but trying to predict how that \u2018new normal\u2019 (perhaps defined as the point when an effective vaccine is widely available?) will differ from what has been predicted by transport planners in the pre-Covid19 world, using trend-based \u2018Business as Usual\u2019 forecasting approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of the travel-related factors which might be affected in the post-Covid19 world are listed below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TRANSPORT FACTORS LIKELY TO CHANGE IN THE POST-COVID19 WORLD<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Social distancing on PT <\/strong>– Effective capacity of individual public transport vehicles reduced – short-term effect?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mode choice parameters<\/strong> – Active travel more popular? Public transport less popular? Fuel price? Changes in parking charges? – How long will these changes persist? Cycling in November is less attractive than cycling in April & May!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Travel demand to\/from existing premises<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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