Impact of Covid-19 on Transport and Travel

One of the most immediate and striking impacts of the pandemic was the sudden curtailment of our rights and opportunities to travel beyond our own homes and immediate localities. Whilst lockdown’s restrictions are temporary, what will the long-term consequences for travel and transport be? Will we travel less internationally and domestically? For business? For leisure? Both? What will the impact be on international air transport and the global tourism industry? How will this effect both the economies and people’s quality of life in countries dependent on Tourism? Will our patterns of travel alter permanently? Under Lockdown, fear of contagion reduced rail travel to 5% of its previous level and only returned to 30-40% of prior use in the period between lockdowns. Bus travel numbers fell equally drastically. Will public transport recover, or will car use inexorably rise as people seek private bubbles of safety over public exposure? How will the rise in home-working affect our travel patterns? Will the mass commute to work be consigned to history? Will we cycle or use electric bikes more for shorter commutes? Can and will our cities be remodelled to facilitate these changes? What will be the impact on the environment?

On December 3rd the Pandemic Perspectives group debated these issues, guided by the National Geographic Article, ‘How hard will the Coronavirus hit the Travel Industry?’; An IGC survey of the pandemics effect on travel in the Global South; The IEA’s wide-ranging survey, ‘Changes in Transport Behaviour during the Covid-19 Crisis’; The Campaign for Better Transport‘s forward-looking report of July 2020, ‘Covid-19 Recovery:Renewing the Transport System’; Sustrans‘ ‘Transport in the UK will never be the same- It must be better’; Gwyn Topham’s Guardian article from September, ‘It’s back to the 1950s as Day Trips replace the Daily Commute’; and with Julia Kowelle, ‘UK Ends Rail Franchising as Covid Measures extended’. Two further articles were added by Marta Starostina, whose research focusses on travel and tourism in the former USSR; The New York Times piece, ‘The Future of Travel’; And This is Money’s article on the tourist industry, ‘Holiday bookings may not recover until 2023‘.

Marta led the debate, opening by highlighting the impact on the cruise ship industry, which has been devastated by the pandemic and has not been the recipient of any government subsidy unlike other sectors. Ronan Love suggested that from an environmental perspective the decline in the cruise ship business was a positive good as it was a significant polluter. He also noted that the industry had not received subsidy as it had located itself offshore to avoid tax and regulation, and argued that its impoverishment was ‘just deserts’. This view was echoed by David Christie, who noted the poor treatment of workers on cruise ships, who were unprotected by health and safety legislation and, like other crew on ships domiciled under flags of convenience, were unable to gain recourse for unpaid wages and were often abandoned in ports far from their country of origin. He declared it would be no bad thing if the entire industry disappeared. Gah-Kai Leung disputed this, arguing that this showed a disregard for those employed in the industry who’s livelihoods depended on the work. A dispute about non-productive capitalism and the mentality of ‘any job is a good job’ thinking which valorised an ecologically unsustainable and unjust distribution of wealth developed. The debate was interesting but took us in the direction of questions of global governance and away from our primary focus.

Marta had also raised the way in which the pandemic had affected income groups differently, noting that yacht tours, car tours and private jet usage had increased as a consequence of covid-19 and postulated that in the future the wealthy would travel more, the poorer less, and air travel might return to being exclusively the preserve of the rich. Ronan Love pointed out, that on a global scale this was already the case, as only something like 5% of the world’s population expected to take a flight in any given year, a fact that was obscured by our privileged position as members of the developed Western world. David argued that the end of global travel as an assumed right for citizens of wealthy countries was a good thing, both environmentally and in the way that it would help the domestic economy of the UK. He reiterated arguments made in a previous session that the rise of ‘staycation’ would redistribute wealth in Britain, restoring the fortunes of run-down seaside resorts such as Blackpool or Broadstairs that had been in decline since the British decamped to Spain or the Greek Islands in the 1970s. Liam Knight, himself from Devon, argued that the week-long British holiday had certainly never gone away from his part of the country, and suggested there were limitations to its redistributive quality, arguing that people spent less money in domestic situations as opposed to abroad where foreign currency was perceived as ‘monopoly money’. Ronan also demurred, noting that David’s argument ignored the drastic economic consequences of a stark decline in tourism for Europe’s mediterranean states who were hugely dependent on tourism as a proportion of their GDP. He noted that Greece’s sovereign debt crisis had been partly precipitated by declining numbers of tourists following the global crash of 2008. David argued that tourism had other deleterious affects on dependent states, on culture, the environment, the cost of living and quality of life of native populations, and its decline could still be welcomed. He received little support for this view, with Gah-kai pointing out, that imperfect as it was, it represented a substantial redistribution of wealth from the wealthiest states and was particularly important for countries in the global south.

Ronan also responded to Marta’s comments on wealth and transport use, noting the pre-existing denigration of public transport by the wealthy, the post-covid rise in the value of second hand cars and the fact that rail subsidy had always benefited the middle-class who were its primary consumers. He argued that there was lots of work to do in re-imaging the role of public transport. David suggested that this had already begun, although as a consequence of contingency rather than design, noting the re-nationalisation of the rail system in Wales and the ending of the franchise system in England. He suggested that a shift from a transport system seen as an opportunity for profit for private companies to one that provided a vital service for the public good may have already begun. Liam Knight was unsure of the viability of a nationalised rail service, particularly if passenger numbers remained suppressed following the pandemic and the service was run at a considerable loss to the state. Ronan countered, arguing that if the state took responsibility the question of the purpose of the transport system would at least be aired, and noted that if the daily commute is likely to be drastically reduced by the rise in home-working, the very structure of the system would need re-working to make it fit for purpose.

A debate on the impact of increased home-working ensued. David argued that it would be profound and long-term, and that cities would be re-envisaged, perhaps along the lines of the ’15 minute city’, with services, employment and entertainment dispersed, and transport by bicycle and e-bike becoming the most prominent means of transportation. Gah-Kai was sceptical, noting that cities had been designed for the car and not for people. He raised the issue of ‘lock-in’ as a consequence of short-termism in city planning citing the example of British Columbia where brick buildings had been constructed in the colonial period despite the likely incidence of earthquakes over the longer-term for which brick was a wholly unsuitable medium for construction. David countered, arguing that unlike American grid-cities, many of the UK’s major cities were constructed on a Medieval base such as London, or for transportation by horse and cart, and that they would function better if repurposed for walking and cycling. Marta lent some support, noting that in Holland such a process was well-advanced, with bicycles outnumbering cars in Amsterdam and this had been achieved by the construction of cycle lanes and car-free zones which had a snowballing effect. Gah-kai was doubtful, arguing that it would require a paradigm shift to move people away from their love of cars and a car-orientated lifestyle. Ronan agreed, dismissing a shift from cars to bicycles as a logistical impossibility, given the need for the transportation of goods, the distances involved in travel to work and the interconnected nature of both the domestic and global economy. He argued that the solution to reducing the environment impact of travel by car lay in their electrification, not in a utopian re-orientation of society to bicycle use. David attempted to defend his corner, arguing that the arguments were complimentary not antagonistic, and that statist solutions were only partly responsible for societal change. He used a range of pop-cultural arguments such as ‘nudges’ and ‘tipping- points’ and referenced notions of diffused power and mechanisms of change as expounded by Gramsci and Foucault. No one was much impressed. Gah-kai put the group on a firmer footing by outlining what he termed the fidelity/compromise dilemma – that the desire to make perfect should not be the enemy of achieving the good – but also that the good must be created in a way that did not prevent the achievement of the best. He noted that the electrification of cars was a good example of this debate, perhaps achieving a substantial reduction in air pollution and carbon emissions, but further locking in the personalised transportation system of car travel.

There was much more, join pandemic perspectives to have your say or set up your own group…