Transportation Planning Casebook/COVID-19 and Public Transport

Summary
Shut down policy

Typical case: Wuhan

This is the strictest type of policy for public transport. Under such a type of policy, it is mandatory for citizens to quarantine at home, almost no trips would be generated. Wuhan adopted this policy during the peak of the pandemic for 68 days.

Advantages:


 * Effectively prevent the spread of the pandemic
 * Quick recovery

Disadvantages:


 * Restricting freedom of travel
 * Difficult to guarantee the supply and delivery of daily necessities. Developed e-commerce system and sufficient number of volunteers required.

Restriction policy
Typical case: Sydney

Basically, there are two approaches for the restriction. One is to restrict the occupancy of a public transport carriage. Sydney has been adopting this policy to ensure social distance. The restriction of occupancy is constantly adjusted to the risk levels of the pandemic. Another is the entry restrictions for passengers according to their health status and travel history. Wuhan adopted this type of policy by using a health code system.

Advantages:


 * Reducing the risk of infection in public spaces

Disadvantages:


 * Wasted capacity for Sydney
 * Privacy issues for Wuhan

Guidance policy
Typical case: London

This type of policy includes recommending people to wear masks, keep social distancing, and not to make non-essential journeys. Almost every city has formulated this type of policy, and most of the public transport policies in London are of this type.

Advantages:


 * Low cost
 * Quick and easy implementation

Disadvantages:


 * Higher risk of infection

Maps
Real-time map of Sydney public transport can be check at https://anytrip.com.au/region/nsw

Policy Issues
Policy issues arising from public transport responses are varied. In many cases, these issues are intertwined so that an issue in one area will affect policy in another area.

Public health
Public transport policy responses have the foremost goal of maintaining public health in the midst of the pandemic. Public health is conducive to the economic recovery.

Economic recovery
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated shutdowns result in economic downturns and rising unemployment. Public transport is crucial to the economic recovery since it provides reliant commuters and individuals with the travel means to get to their jobs and contribute to economic activity.

Fare revenue
In Sydney, public transport capacity limits and lockdowns substantially decreased patronage by 80% in April 2020 (Rabe, 2020), equating to 51 million fewer trips taken on Sydney’s rail, bus, and ferry network in March 2020 compared to March 2019 (Rabe & Singhal, 2020). Low passenger volumes and decreased efficiency resulted in NSW public transport revenue falling by $360M in the three months to June 2020 (Rabe, 2020). Experts predict that [patronage] may never resemble the sometimes overcrowded pre-coronavirus levels (Rabe & Gladstone, 2020) because of significant behavioural change among CBD professionals including rising popularity of working from home and walking, cycling, and driving to work

Transport
Workers, students, and other transport users rely on the public transport network to get to where they need to go which in turn supports the economic recovery. There is also wide risk of people making long-term switches to private cars (lock-in) which would increase road congestion, vehicular emissions, and reduced public transport patronage. For example in NSW, 800,000 additional people needing to travel without using public transport in May, 2020, which would cause widespread road congestion. Some strategies which could be taken to alleviate this include: priority bus lanes, increase services, cycleways, options to solve the first- and last-mile problem, contactless ticketing, peak spreading, active transport and micromobility. Future policy should aim to "lock-in" the positive habits gained during lockdown and travel restrictions as well, including multi-person video conferencing and working from home which helps to decrease travel demand.

Equity
Equity issues arise in the geographical distribution of public transport service, especially in relation to areas where public transport has a higher mode share. In Sydney, commuter numbers on buses in outer suburbs were between 60 and 65% through June 2020 compared to the same time in 2019, while the inner west (48%) and the eastern suburbs (42%) saw much lower patronage numbers in June 2020 (Rabe & Gladstone, 2020). Public transport capacity limits will cause a larger volume of passengers to lose the means to travel in the outer suburbs which has equity implications.

Sydney
The growth of covid-19 in Sydney saw various public transport responses which are likely to have contributed to its subsequent fall. Important to the fall was the government mandate to ban non-essential travel and requiring businesses to switch to remote working arrangements. The Apple Mobility Index, which indicates the number of Apple Maps travel queries made during 2020, saw up to an 80% decrease for driving, public transit, and walking modes after the government mandate. Not all businesses are suited to remote work: construction and grocery shopping are good examples of this. While Wuhan took the drastic measures of locking down the public transport network entirely, Sydney’s relatively low case numbers did not warrant a total shutdown. To maintain a balance between economic activity and public health, public transport operating procedures were altered. Cleaning regimes were substantially increased, significant capacity limits were imposed on all modes to maintain passenger social distancing. Many services were frequently at capacity which necessitated increasing frequency of service: 3,300 extra bus and train services were added in June 2020 as post-lockdown travel increased. Coinciding with the fall of covid-19 case numbers (May - July), public transport capacity limits were doubled to cater for more trips. Social distancing rules were mandated through the use of green dot stickers indicating where passengers were permitted to occupy based on capacity limits. In the figure below, the orange dots represent the seating arrangement of three social distancing scenarios where scenario 1 represents the May 2020 capacity limits, and scenario 2 and 3 representing the July 2020 and December 2020 limits.

Among the timeline of public transport responses are specific changes to operating procedures to maintain customer service and health safety in the midst of the pandemic. Sydney public transport changed service capacity level indicators to reflect the newly implemented social distancing rules and capacity limits. This gave customers greater information when choosing the travel mode. Automatic opening light-rail doors increased air circulation and minimised passenger contact points to reduce the risk of transmission. Public transport signs, digital billboards, and variable message signs were used to transmit news and information about new covid-19 rules and restrictions to a large number of people. Transport for NSW also converted a broad range of services into contactless methods: ticket validation, closure of human ticket sales booths. Social distancing measures also affect station concourses and platforms and station staff were increased to assist with customer service and managing customer flow.

Observing trends in the transmission of covid-19 in NSW provides the context to the timeline of public transport responses. COVID-19 in NSW can be categorised into three waves:


 * Wave 1 - March 2020 - May 2020
 * Wave 2 - July 2020 - November 2020
 * Wave 3 - December 2020 - January 2021

Wave 1 coincides with the most extreme public transport capacity restrictions beginning May 2020, following the March 2020 lockdowns in which Sydney residents were legislated to work from home if possible and avoid non-essential travel. Wave 2 did not receive much response from Transport for NSW, as travel continuously increased from the April bottom. The emergence of wave 3 prior to Christmas resulted in the mask-wearing rules in January 2021 in order to avoid a worsening outbreak. It is worth noting that public transport travel decreases in December and January due to Christmas holidays, evident in both 2019 and 2020 data. Sydney Public Transport network modes consist of train, bus, metro, ferry, light rail, but the latter three are omitted from the analysis due to relatively small mode share. The impact of capacity limits on Sydney Public Transport are highlighted through case study of the M52 bus line (now 500X) which runs from Parramatta to the Sydney CBD via Ryde. The diagram shows the temporal demand profile of stop 46 on the M52 bus route. The AM peak (8-9am) has the most services, but 50% of them are at standing room only status which is not adherent to social distancing scenarios. There is additional capacity available before and after the AM peak, but there are a smaller number of services. Transit operators can increase capacity in the shoulder periods or users can shift their demand to the interpeak. Alternatively, there is scope to increase the number of services in the AM peak but this has further cost implications.

London
Covid-19 has had a major impact on London’s transport systems and will likely permanently effect the way in which the industry functions. The arrival of Covid-19 in late February of 2020 met a Government in disarray. Due to a failed initial response by the UK government, they have experienced the pandemic on a very large scale. Currently Ontario, a region of London is under lockdown. The UK has opted regional lock downs when the spread gets out of hand and it is recommended that people do not use public transport. This has resulted in an extremely decreased amount of public transport usage. So much so that there has been a multi billion-dollar bailout for the industry. Transport for London received a $3.2 billion dollar bailout to keep buses running as they saw up to a 90% drop in fare revenue in 2020. TfL was in such a bad state that the government was considering scrapping the policy that allowed free fares for under 18s, this proposal however was petitioned against by the mayor successfully.

Due to the pandemic businesses have realised how much cheaper it is to work from home and that they don’t need much office space. Software like Zoom and Teams make taking public transport to a meeting archaic and expensive. People have also found value in the time that they would normally spend traveling. The data below from the London Government shows just to what extent the usage has been affected by the pandemic.

Rail Usage: Bus Usage: Motor Vehicle Usage: According to a survey by the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry the idea of working from home will affect future transport policy even after the pandemic has ended in London. The poll shows that 52% of Businesses were planning on having some form remote working practices after the pandemic ends. Additionally more then a third of the participants stated that they would continue the levels of working from home to the same degree as during the pandemic even after its over. This will have a large permanent affect on London's transport industry if this does come into effect and the city will just have to wait and see what implications this will have on Government policy and how it will handle less commuters with existing infrastructure that will continue to use money.

Wuhan
Wuhan is the geographic centre of China. It has a population of eleven million, which is over two times that of Sydney.

A month before spring festival, COVID-19 was discovered. Further spatial spread of this disease was of great concern in view of the upcoming Spring Festival (chunyun), during which there are typically 3 billion travel movements over the 40-day holiday period, which runs from 15 days before the Spring Festival (Chinese Lunar New Year) to 25 days afterward. People fell into panic at the beginning. But afterward, as support across the country arrived, people gradually began to accept the lockdown policy. During that period, all public transport were shut down. There was zero travel demand, as barriers were used to block people from leaving their residential complex. After 68 days of lock down, China had maintained a certain period of zero newly cases, thus the lock down policy was lifted. The main policy during this period was the health code policy. To obtain a health code, people were required to report their travel history in their smart phones. Then, each time people enter a shopping mall or a metro station, they had to scan the QR code and had their temperature taken. A green colour of health code represents permission to such public spaces. Anyone who had ever been to a high-risk area or exposed to Covid-19 patients within the past 14 days would not be allowed for free travel. Finally, since July, the health code policy was lifted. Mandatory mask wearing was the only policy for public transport, and the public spaces became crowded as usual.



Transport patterns for people were significantly influenced in last year. In April 2020, the first month since the metro services were resumed, the metro passenger flow only restored to 14%. However, China is recovering faster than the other countries. Today, the metro patronage in Wuhan restored to 90%. Some other cities in China have just broken their daily metro patronage records during the past International Worker's Day.



According to a survey conducted in April 2020 by ITDP, mode share for public transport dropped significantly during the pandemic. Travel mode for some of the previous public transport users transferred to walking or private cars at that time. Only 34% of them were still willing to use public transport in April 2020. 24% of them transferred to private cars, 17% transferred to taxi or car-hailing, the rest of them selected walking or biking.

As a brief conclusion, Wuhan acted fast and adopted the strictest policy. There was a huge damage to the economy and public transport patronage. However, after a temporary change of travel patterns in the middle of last year, the travel demand and public transport usage was quickly restored to the pre-covid situations.

Discussion Questions

 * 1) Imagine that you are the managing director of Transport for London in early 2020. What measures would you put in place in response to COVID-19?
 * 2) Can you demonstrate how effective the Sydney public transport measures have been using the data and timeline of events?
 * 3) How have the 3 cities differed in their public transport response?
 * 4) What is the most concerning policy issue, and why? Can you relate the issue in some way to your own experience?