Post-Pandemic Travel Modes Have Permanently Shifted

The Economist May 21st 2022 pp53-54 |Britain| The future of transport “The road not taken” “The pandemic seems to have changed travel patterns for good”

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Summary by 2244

Image and description from crews.ac.uk

Data

“Britain, journeys relative to pre-pandemic level, % February 24th-April 10th 2022

Cars 90% of pre-pandemic on weekdays and 100% on weekends

Buses (excluding London) ~78% weekdays and ~ 84% weekends

London Buses about 77% weekdays and ~83% on weekends

National Rail about 75% weekdays and weekends

London Underground 60% weekdays and 80% weekends

Narrative

Those in Britain, and possibly elsewhere, have “settled into a new pattern, which is drastically different from the pre-pandemic one.” Besides driving less, fewer cars are being purchased in Britain at 536,727 versus 862,100 in the same period three years earlier.

As the data shows, weekday travel is relatively lower than weekend travel. “Rush-hour travel has declined the most.” These data suggest that a fraction of work, white-collar work, will remain from home. The data also, along with other data, suggest that travelers are not currently concerned with safety from respiratory diseases like COVID.

Interestingly, though, even in the city, Londoners are traveling shorter distances in the underground “2.8km…versus…4.4km.” In contrast to white-collar workers, that can work from home, students and blue-collar workers are using buses as before.

While some believe that eventually most workers will return to office, the transportation professionals are not planning based on that narrative. They are, in fact, scaling back routes and scaling back plans for system expansion. The authors state that “the link between job growth and transport use [has] been broken.”

Lastly, many systems have been supported, through the pandemic, by grants that will end in the near future. Officials worry, and have some data to suggest, that as “public transport worsens people will work from home more, or jump in their cars.”