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The past months have greatly influenced the way people choose to travel. It is too early to say that the trends have been identified, but it is already possible to analyze the scenarios
About the expert: Artem Gerasimenko is an urbanist, founder of the Healthy Cities Center, author of the telegram channel of the same name. In 2018-19, he headed the Architects.rf educational program of the Strelka Institute. In 2016-18, he was involved in the development of reforms at the Center for Strategic Research (CSR). In 2014-16, he held the position of project manager at the Moscow Department of Transport, where he took part in the preparation of a strategy for the development of the city’s pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, the development of regulatory documents and public services.
What happened to global mobility
In difficult recent months, movement has become a deficit. In the broadest sense – and short exits on business, and the daily routine in the form of trips to work, and outdoor training, and even more so travel. Of course, this did not affect everyone and not everywhere, but the return to active life of cities and countries frozen during the pandemic creates new challenges for established transport systems. How city managers, technologists and direct users deal with them gives rise to reflections on the future development of urban transport.
As awareness of the danger of the disease grew, life gradually died down. With the introduction of quarantines, the streets of cities were almost completely empty – the widespread fear of infection, the sudden lack of work, and somewhere the punishment for going out without a good reason, showed how the world may look for the first time after the death of mankind.
In a sense, a paradoxical situation has occurred with public transport. – on the one hand, buses and subway cars instantly turned into places with a high degree of risk, on the other hand, they were so empty that they allowed people who needed to continue to travel around the city to keep a safe distance.
Restrictions also immobilized all sharing transport – 400 thousand cars in 59 countries also began to pose a threat to users. Uber announced a global reduction in the number of trips by 80%. In the US, the use of rental scooters has dropped to almost zero. In our country, a ban on the use of sharing cars has been introduced. As a result, for almost two months of downtime, operating companies lost hundreds of millions of rubles in profit.
A lot has been said about the impact of what happened on the environment and the economy, but if we dwell directly on the transport aspects, we can note the following. The sharp decline in car traffic – and we are talking not only about personal cars, but also business vehicles – for the first time in modern history, made it possible to show their negative impact in full. Not a single “Day without a car” specially organized in many cities of the world has made it clear how much noise, dust and exhaust gases are present in the life of a city dweller.
How cities are trying to deal with the transport crisis
As soon as quarantine regimes became softer, experts began to develop large-scale plans to introduce measures to prevent or at least slow down the next waves of the virus. The focus is on city streets.
For decades, WHO has been advising city governments around the world to transform urban spaces to be cycling and walking friendly. It reduces the convenience of using a car, but allows you to increase the physical activity of urban residents – and this directly affects their health.
But the experience of cities that have taken the virus under control has shown that, along with the release of quarantine and an alarming attitude towards public transport, megacities face a sharp jump in the popularity of the car. The reasons are convincing – inside the car the risk is several times lower than in the train or bus.
To get away from this trend, began active work to promote cycling. In some countries, infrastructure work has been supported by financial measures – subsidizing the purchase and repair of bicycles, as well as tax breaks for companies that encourage their employees to give up cars. Whether it worked or not, time will tell.
This turn cannot be called universal or sudden – only about 100 cities in the world have announced such plans, and in many of them the humanization of the urban environment was already on the agenda. The coronavirus crisis has only accelerated the development of the established trend. Milan, Paris, London, Berlin and New York were among the cities that showed the greatest readiness for action.
Even before the partial lifting of restrictions, air travel experts predicted the introduction of a virus testing system at airports, in which a person would either need to provide up-to-date test results or undergo an expensive rapid analysis on the spot in order to board a plane. Vienna Airport even announced the introduction of such a package of measures. However, as practice has shown, this scheme is more likely to not work – when opening air traffic, the authorities are guided by large data on morbidity statistics and recommend minimizing the possibility of close contact between passengers. If one of the recent passengers is found to have the virus, the data is raised and work begins to warn everyone who had the opportunity to become infected. Such a mechanism does not provide a guarantee, and there are already cases of new transboundary diseases, but they are rather isolated.
What can be expected in the future
In the autumn, the number of diseases can increase dramatically due to the movement of people from the open air to indoors. It is difficult to predict how strong the blow will be – perhaps the severity of the consequences this time will depend not only on the determination of the authorities, but also on the public mood. Recent protests against the second wave of restrictive measures in Serbia have led to riots and clashes with police.
BCG analysts conducted a survey of 5 people in the largest cities in the US, China and Western Europe to find out how transport habits and personal strategies are changing. According to the survey, during quarantine, the use of public transport, taxis and sharing has become 60% less than residents of megacities. At the same time, the popularity of personal bicycles, scooters and just walking has grown by 20-60%. About half of all respondents plan to remain in this mode in the near future. But in China, the percentage of people planning to buy a personal car is much higher – perhaps this is due to the impression of a complete ban on public transport during the pandemic.
In the next few years, two scenarios are still possible:
In general, in order to support and restart the mobility sector, consultants from BCG offer investors, transport operators and city authorities to unite and synchronize efforts. To deal with the anxieties and fears of citizens, it is proposed to install screens between the driver and passengers, dismantle some of the seats and disinfection equipment.
An international team of consultants from Deloitte agrees with colleagues – it is still difficult to determine a single scenario for the further development of the mobility sector. But for their part, they see four possible options with telling names, each of which can be realized in the next three to five years: “Temporary Storm”, “Good Company”, “Sunrise in the East” and “Lone Wolves”. Scenarios are built on the basis of a set of indicators – victory over the virus and normalization, maintaining the status quo and cooperation of companies to create a new mobility device, the victory of Eastern countries over the virus and intercepting the global economic initiative, an increase in mortality and increased individual isolation, respectively.
The first and second options can be confidently considered positive – the disease will be defeated, and mobility will finally turn into a serviceprovided by large private companies operating flexibly and quickly.
The “Rise in the East” scenario is built around the success of the eastern countries in the fight against viruses, which neither the United States nor Europe have been able to repeat. In it, analysts predictrelocation of key mobility research and technology centers to China, Japan and South Korea; the introduction of social control technologies in Western countries and strict regulation of the sphere of ownership and use of road transport, following the model of Singapore and Hong Kong.
The last scenario paints a picture of a dystopia in which globality disappears and is replaced by state control and protectionism, as well as the restructuring of society, labor and services.
Summing up my report, Deloitte analysts highlights the importance of the steps being taken around the world now, because they shape the picture and circumstances of the future. In the event of a negative development of events, a willingness to rethink and restructure the systems for the movement of people and goods will be required, and so far this can be equally successful in development and degradation.
Infrastructure projects that have already begun to emerge, in addition to the active cycling of megacities, include a pan-European high-speed rail system and a strategy for an accelerated transition to renewable energy sources. Trains are the most environmentally friendly means of transport, and the ability to travel at speeds up to 300 km/h will make the EU space more accessible and mutually integrated. Separate segments of this network already exist or are under construction, but according to the calculations of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Research, additional funds will be required to unite into a single network.
It is difficult to say how events will develop, and in what scenery and with what rules people will move in the near future. However, it is safe to say that walking and cycling will always be relevant, so if you do not yet have a habit of 12 thousand steps or 10 km a day, it’s time to start developing it.
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