Investigation of Employee Related Airport Ground Access Strategies from a Post-COVID Perspective

Until recently, addressing the environmental externalities associated with the use of the private car and single occupancy vehicles has been the focus of the airport ground access policies worldwide. However, with the emerging unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, which have already changed the way we live, work, and travel, encouraging a change in commuter behavior has become even more important. This has necessitated that existing strategies be reconsidered in favor of adapting to a highly uncertain ‘‘COVID-19 world.'' Historically, there has been a dearth of literature relating to airport employees' ground access even though as a group employees represent an important segment of airport users with complex access requirements. This paper therefore focuses on airport employee related airport ground access strategies considering an emerging understanding of the future impacts of COVID-19 on global air travel. Pre-COVID strategies are investigated by conducting a documentary analysis of the most recent ground access strategies of 27 UK airports. The findings reveal that airport ground access strategies were mainly focused on setting targets and producing policy measures in favor of reducing car use and increasing the use of more sustainable transport modes including public transport, car sharing, and active travel (walking, cycling). However, measures encouraging public transport and car sharing will be more difficult to implement because of social distancing and fear of proximity to others. Instead, initiatives encouraging remote working, active travel, and improved staff awareness will be at the forefront of the future ground access strategy development. © National Academy of Sciences: Transportation Research Board 2021.

Car driving as inverted quarantine and the sensory response to collective threats: challenges for public transport

Attempts at changing individual car use behavior towards increased use of public transport have so far largely failed. This paper will argue that the continued rise in individual car use needs to be understood as part of an overall trend towards protecting oneself instead of protecting the environment, i.e. an individualized sensory response to an omnipresent collective threat. The car industry serves this trend perfectly with features that turn cars into "cozy” cocoons that protect passengers from the dangers of the outside world. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has fostered this trend, it has been inherent in the resistant nature of cars for decades. Thus, today cars are increasingly used for their sensory aspects related to safety and protection from an infectious, dirty, and violent outside world. This trend is supported by highly individualized cushioning and comfort factors that make cars "special places.” Any strategies for promoting alternative forms of transport thus need to consider these sensory developments when creating incentives for people to travel by train, bus, etc. instead of driving cars. The paper ends with a few speculations on how public transport could be made more attractive given the current role of sensory perception in car driving. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

How has COVID-19 changed private car use in European urban areas? An analysis of the effect of socio-economic characteristics and mobility habits.

The private car has been identified as the main winner among transport modes in urban areas during the COVID-19 pandemic. The fear of contagion when using public transport or the decrease in road congestion are likely to have induced changes in citizens' travel habits with respect to cars. This work investigates the impact of the pandemic on individuals' habits and preferences regarding their car ownership levels and car usage in the European urban context, with a special focus on the role played by individual socio-demographics and urban mobility patterns. For this purpose, a Path Analysis approach has been adopted to model car ownership and use before and after COVID-19. The main data source employed in this research is an EU-Wide Urban Mobility Survey that collects detailed information (individual and household socio-economic characteristics, built environment attributes and mobility habits) of 10,152 individuals from a total of 21 European urban areas of different sizes, geographical locations, and urban forms. The survey data has been complemented with city-level variables that account for differences across the cities that may explain changes in car-related behaviour. The results show that the pandemic has induced an increase in car use among socio-economic groups that are generally associated with low car-dependent behaviour, revealing that policy instruments that discourage the use of the private car in urban areas are needed to avoid reversing past trends in the reduction of urban transport emissions. High-income, well-educated teleworkers are observed to be the ones that have reduced their car use to a larger extent. On the contrary, low-income individuals are mostly maintaining similar levels of car mobility. Finally, frequent public transport users are more likely than occasional users to have substituted this mode by the private car.

A cross-cultural analysis of ridesharing intentions and compliance with COVID-19 health guidelines: The roles of social trust, fear of COVID-19, and trust-in-God

Ridesharing services such as Uber and Lyft have been substantially affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on social capital theory, the current research investigates how social trust relates to three types of trust in compliance with COVID-19 guidelines and consumers' ridesharing intentions. Analyzing data from two economically and culturally distinct countries, the results suggest that social trust positively affects trust in platform companies' compliance with COVID-19 guidelines (TPC), but not (or to a lesser extent) trust in drivers' (TDC) and other riders (TRC) compliance with COVID-19 guidelines in both the United States and Bangladesh. Importantly, TPC, TDC, and TRC are positively related with consumers' ridesharing intentions in the United States but not in Bangladesh. Furthermore, the analysis reveals two counterintuitive moderating effects of fear of COVID-19 and trust in God. The results provide important insights on factors affecting the ridesharing industry in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they emphasize the importance of considering cultural context in understanding consumers' intentions to engage in the sharing economy. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Survey on urban transport in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak: Data from 20 cities across Europe.

This dataset contains the full results of a survey on mobility patterns after the Covid-19 pandemic. The survey was conducted in the second trimester of 2021 and collected information from 10000 respondents across 20 urban areas. The questions covered demographic and socio-economic characteristics, employment and job related situation, the use of technological alternatives in daily activities, mobility patterns (trip frequency, purpose, destination, mode, level of comfort), and perceptions as regards the usability of each transport option. Particular emphasis was given to the comparison of current activity to that before the pandemic. The survey combined an online (Computer-Assisted Web Interviews, CAWI) approach with telephone (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews, CATI) interviews. The sample in each city was representative of the local demographic and socio-economic profile according to age, sex, employment situation, education and urbanization.

The role of bike sharing during the coronavirus pandemic: An analysis of the mobility patterns and perceptions of Lisbon's GIRA users.

COVID-19 has dramatically impacted urban mobility, of which public transport (PT) has been particularly affected. With PT ridership plummeting due to infection fears and many people returning to work, there is a danger of a steep rise in car use that would exacerbate environmental and health problems. Therefore, other modes such as bike sharing should be considered as potential alternatives during the coronavirus pandemic. This study focuses on assessing how coronavirus has impacted bike sharing by implementing a travel behaviour survey to the users of GIRA, the bike sharing system (BSS) of Lisbon. While the coronavirus has led some to decrease the frequency of use or quit the system, other users have increased the usage or joined GIRA during the pandemic. Furthermore, most users who have quit or decreased the usage of GIRA justify their decision not so much on avoiding the risk of infection (although for some it is an important reason) but on having stopped commuting due to COVID-19. The survey has also revealed substantial changes not only on the usage patterns of GIRA users but also on their relationship with other modes of transport. While before the pandemic, most respondents were shifting from PT to GIRA, that percentage has declined, with an increase on the share of users replacing walking, private car, and personal cycling. Moreover, the motivations for using bike sharing related with avoiding PT and maintaining a social distance during the trip have gained more relevance. Concurrently, the perceived safety of using PT has drastically declined, and while the perceived safety of using GIRA has also decreased it was in a much smaller scale. Policy insights can be derived from this research on how bike sharing can contribute to a more sustainable and resilient urban transport system. During infectious public health crises such as COVID-19, BSS can be a viable transport alternative, not only providing the population with an affordable mode of transport where social distancing can be maintained in most of the trip but also mitigating a modal shift from PT to the private car.