Evolution of teleworking and urban mobility changes driven by the COVID-19 pandemic across European Cities

Work-related travel is one of the primary travel purposes for citizens (Eurostat, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic triggered significant changes in lifestyles and mobility that may persist in the long term. Teleworking and online shopping are much more widely adopted than before the pandemic crisis, while active mobility modes have gained a considerable share of urban transport activity. Restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that several activities developed within the city can be done by ICT tools, such as working from home or shopping online, among others. Those tools can be used to avoid -potentially-unnecessary trips and consequently reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. This work aims to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the adoption of teleworking and how mobility behaviour has changed during the pandemic. It also explores the factors that may affect mobility changes, their long-term effects and potential repercussion on GHG emissions. To do so, we use an extensive survey carried out in 20 European cities across 11 Member States, applying statistical inference analysis among different categories of variables focusing on active workers. Results show that teleworking has grown significantly during the pandemic, both in the number of users and in the frequency of use. The change in mobility patterns has been significant and might serve as a lever for change towards a more sustainable mobility, but also for the worse if the right decisions are not made consequently. © 2023 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.

The Role of Stakeholders in Creating Mobility in Logistics Systems of Polish Cities

The basis for developing logistics solutions in cities is to know the requirements and expectations of current and potential transport users and for decision makers to strive to meet them. In building an urban logistics strategy, it is therefore necessary to take into account different stakeholder groups. Building stakeholder relations should be aimed at involving them in the development of a sustainable transport policy for the city. It should be noted, however, that the importance of stakeholders in transport policy is diverse. This assumption was made in the paper, which aimed to identify the role of the various groups of urban logistics stakeholders in the sustainable movement of people. This challenge is subordinated to the methodology proposed in the paper, which combines the analysis of urban logistics stakeholders and the assignment of roles to them in the pursuit of sustainable flows of people in the city with the identification of tasks in which stakeholders characterized by a particular role should be involved. Achieving the stated goal required collaboration with experts. Research on the roles of stakeholders, as well as the tasks in which they should be involved, was conducted in Polish cities. Infrastructure managers, small mobility organisers, public safety organisations and public transport organisations turned out to be the development leaders who, as a result, were recommended to be included in most tasks by local government units of Polish cities. What deserves special attention in the results obtained, on the other hand, is the role of the unpredictable main player, which is other cities.

Reliability-Oriented Route Generation Algorithm for Multimodal Transport: A Perspective from Supply Chain Reliability Enhancement

Sudden infectious diseases and other malignant events cause excessive costs in the supply chain, particularly in the transportation sector. This issue, along with the uncertainty of the development of global epidemics and the frequency of extreme natural disaster events, continues to provoke discussion and reflection. However, transport systems involve interactions between different modes, which are further complicated by the reliable coupling of multiple modes. Therefore, for the vital subsystem of the supply chain-multimodal transport, in this paper, a heuristic algorithm considering node topology and transport characteristics in a multimodal transport network (MTN): the Reliability Oriented Routing Algorithm (RORA), is proposed based on the super-network and improved k-shell (IKS) algorithm. An empirical case based on the Yangtze River Delta region of China demonstrates that RORA enables a 16% reduction in the boundary value for route failure and a reduction of about 60.58% in the route cost increase compared to the typical cost-optimal algorithm, which means that RORA results in a more reliable routing solution. The analysis of network reliability also shows that the IKS values of the nodes are positively correlated with the reliability of the MTN, and nodes with different modes may have different transport reliabilities (highest for highways and lowest for inland waterways). These findings inform a reliability-based scheme and network design for multimodal transportation. Practical Applications: Recently, the COVID-19 epidemic and the frequency of natural disasters such as floods have prompted scholars to consider transport reliability. Therefore, efficient and reliable cargo transportation solutions are crucial for the sustainable development of multimodal transport in a country or region. In this paper, a new algorithm is designed to obtain a reliability-oriented optimal routing scheme for multimodal transport. Using actual data from the Yangtze River Delta region of China as an example for experimental analysis, we obtain that: (1) the proposed algorithm is superior in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and route reliability, which means that the new algorithm can quickly find more reliable routing solutions in the event of urban transport infrastructure failures;and (2) highway hubs have the greatest transport reliability. Conversely, inland waterway hubs are the least reliable. The influence of national highways and railways on the multimodal transport system is unbalanced. These findings provide decision support to transport policymakers on reliability. For example, transport investments should be focused on building large infrastructure and increasing transport capacity, strengthening the connectivity of inland waterway hubs to hubs with higher transport advantages, and leveraging the role of large hubs. © 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.

A social media Data-Driven analysis for transport policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in Wuhan, China.

Non-pharmacological interventions (NPI) such as social distancing and lockdown are essential in preventing and controlling emerging pandemic outbreaks. Many countries worldwide implemented lockdowns during the COVID-19 outbreaks. However, due to the lack of prior experience and knowledge about the pandemic, it is challenging to deal with short-term polices decision-making due to the highly stochastic and dynamic nature of the COVID-19. Thus, there is a need for the exploration of policy decision analysis to help agencies to adjust their current policies and adopt quickly. In this study, an analytical methodology is developed to analysis urban transport policy response for pandemic control based on social media data. Compared to traditional surveys or interviews, social media can provide timely data based on the feedback from public in terms of public demands, opinions, and acceptance of policy implementations. In particular, a sentiment-aware pre-trained language model is fine-tuned for sentiment analysis of policy. The Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model is used to classify documents, e.g., posts collected from social media, into specific topics in an unsupervised manner. Then, entropy weights method (EWM) is used to extract public policy demands based on the classified topics. Meanwhile, a Jaccard distance-based approach is proposed to conduct the response analysis of policy adjustments. A retrospective analysis of transport policies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China is presented using the developed methodology. The results show that the developed policymaking support methodology can be an effective tool to evaluate the acceptance of anti-pandemic policies from the public's perspective, to assess the balance between policies and people's demands, and to further perform the response analysis of a series of policy adjustments based on online feedback.

Exploring the potential role of bikeshare to complement public transit: The case of San Francisco amid the coronavirus crisis.

The recent worldwide SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has reshaped the way people live, how they access goods and services, and how they perform various activities. For public transit, there have been health concerns over the potential spread to transit users and transit service staff, which prompted transportation agencies to make decisions about the service, e.g., whether to reduce or temporarily shut down services. These decisions had substantial negative consequences, especially for transit-dependent travelers, and prompted transit users to explore alternative transportation modes, e.g., bikeshare. However, local governments and the public in general have limited information about whether and to what extent bikeshare provides adequate accessibility and mobility to those transit-dependent residents. To fill this gap, this study implemented spatial and visual analytics to identify how micro-mobility in the form of bikesharing has addressed travel needs and improved the resilience of transportation systems. The study analyzed the case of San Francisco in California, USA, focusing on three phases of the pandemic, i.e., initial confirmed cases, shelter-in-place, and initial changes in transit service. First, the authors implemented unsupervised machine learning clustering methods to identify different bikesharing trip types. Moreover, through spatiotemporally matching bikeshare ridership data with transit service information (i.e., General Transit Feed Specification, GTFS) using the tool called OpenTripPlanner (OTP), the authors studied the travel behavior changes (e.g., the proportion of bikeshare trips that could be finished by transit) for different bikeshare trip types over the three specified phases. This study revealed that during the pandemic, more casual users joined bikeshare programs; the proportion of recreation-related bikeshare trips increased; and routine trips became more prevalent considering that docking-station-based bikeshare trips increased. More importantly, the analyses also provided insights about mode substitution, because the analyses identified an increase in dockless bikeshare trips in areas with no or limited transit coverage.

Cycling in an ‘ordinary city': A practice theory approach to supporting a modal shift

There has long been evidence of the benefit of a modal shift toward cycling can bring to meeting several pressing urban challenges including ill-health, climate change, and poor air quality. In the wake of COVID-19, policy-makers have identified a modal shift toward cycling as part of the solution to mobility challenges introduced by social distancing measures. However, beyond exemplar areas, cycling has been largely characterized by a stubbornly-low modal share. In this paper, we use the ‘ordinary city'–in cycling terms–of Liverpool as a case study to understand this. We apply practice theory in doing so, finding the provision of materials for cycling is the key factor in supporting a modal shift. Not only do they provide the means to support the practice of cycling in the city, but they also have a key role in shaping individuals perceptions of, and the skills required to cycle. We then reflect upon the utility of practice theory in understanding the patterns of everyday life, finding it was particularly well suited in understanding the interactions between different factors which influence modal choice. We go on to identify practical challenges in its application within our analysis raising questions around an inconsistent analysis of influential factors including ‘driver behavior' and ‘political commitment'. We suggest how this might be overcome, through the isolation of such factors within a category of ‘action of others', this we argue means the findings in this paper have broad relevance to researchers and policy-makers alike. © 2021 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Analysis of Shared Electric Scooter Use in Riga

Shared electric micromobility has been becoming increasingly popular during last few years, especially in the context of Covid-19 and its impact on public transportation. Because of the electric propulsion, electric scooters are considered as potentially one of the ways how to decrease CO2 emissions in urban transportation sector. This article examines the electric scooter trip data obtained during 2021 scooter season in Riga city. The data analysis shows similarities between scooter trips in Riga and other cities, most notably the hourly trip distribution. There are differences however in many aspects, like average trip distance and duration;the largest difference being the slow average scooter trip speed in Riga, (5.4 km/h) which is comparable to fast walking. The observed significant variance between the trips indicates, that a systematic and holistic approach will be needed to use the scooter trip data making decisions about urban transportation and not relying on average trip data values. The findings from this article will add to understanding of urban transportation in North-Eastern Europe.

Recommendations for Urban Transport Services under COVID-19 Based on Commuting Travel Analysis

With the effective control of Novel coronavirus pneumonia, the priority problem which all cities have to face is how to provide convenient transportation services for the resumption of production. Take Qingdao for example, It is proposed that the transformation of public transportation users to private transportation is the key to effectively control the spread of the epidemic before the NCP is completely resolved at the urban traffic level. On this basis, we put forward some suggestions on how to provide urban transportation services for commuting during the special period of the epidemic. Such as, we need to focus on the low-income groups who commute over long distances, the traffic environment of slow traffic commuter groups and traffic accessibility within the influential scope of core area. © ASCE.

An accessible and inclusive public transportation management response to COVID-19 through a co-creation process with people with disability. The case of Metro Barcelona

The literature on digitalization and accessibility changes to public transport in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. This paper reports on the urban public transport measures against COVID-19 launched by a Spanish transportation operator, TMB (Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona), to ensure safe journeys where digitalization of services have been intensified. This study responds to the current trend whereby transport operators are quickly digitalizing their transportation services as a response to COVID-19. The outcome of the research is to apply contemporary academic theory to assist transportation managers in designing and enhancing transportation services for this group during the COVID-19 pandemic. While transport operators have improved their services to better address the needs of PwD, these changes are far from universal in approach. At the end of 2020, as part of an academic–industry collaboration with a Spanish transportation operator, 12 PwD, six transport staff members, and two representatives of two disability advocacy associations took part in an inclusive urban transportation research project in the city of Barcelona using the service-dominant (SD) logic co-creation process with PwD through a comparative approach. Specifically, we assessed the value outcome perceived by PwD in their Metro experience when resources resulting from the co-creation process were digital (Study 1) and when they were a combination of digital and non-digital (Study 2). To examine the PwD experience, a qualitative methodology was employed that incorporated online focus groups, ethnographic techniques and post-experience surveys with participants. Study 2 indicted better outcomes and explained how ensuring the appropriate combination of digital and non-digital resource allocation for PwD can improve the public transport experience. Our findings can be used by public transport policymakers for enhancing accessibility to improve public transport experiences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing digital and non-digital resources.

Kentsel Ulaşımın Yeni Gündemi: Değişen Seyahat Eğilimleri, Kentsel Hareketlilik ve COVÍD Süreci

Kentlerde yaşayan insanlar için;kentsel ulaşım, gündelik yaşantının doğal bir parçasıdır. Sıradan bir kentli, 20.yy’da gitmek istediği yere, büyük olasılıkla motorlu bir aracın yardımıyla ulaşabilmektedir. Kentlerde taşıt araçları için gerekli altyapının sunulması, bu araçların kullanımını giderek daha da kolaylaştırmıştır. Yaygınlaşan taşıt araçları ise, yolculuk talebini tetikleyerek yük ve yolcu hareketlerinin artmasına neden olmuştur. Ancak kısa denilebilecek bir süre sonra, ulaşımın ekonomik ve çevresel maliyetleri katlanabilir olmaktan çıkmış ve kentlerdeki yaşam kalitesi düşmüştür. Böylece motorlu taşıt araçları odağında gelişen kentler ve ulaşım planları sorgulanır olmuştur. Daha sürdürülebilir ulaşım sistemlerine yönelik arayışlar bu şekilde başlamıştır. Erişilebilirliği, yayayı, mikro hareketlilik araçlarını gözeten yeni ulaşım paradigması artık kentlerin yeni gündemini oluşturmaktadır. Bu çalışma, mevcut ulaşım sistemi ile yukarıda özetlenen gerekçelerle ortaya çıkan yeni ulaşım paradigmasının kavramsal olarak karşılaştırması ile başlamıştır. Ardından, seyahat eğilimlerinde yaşanan değişimler nedenleriyle birlikte ele alınmıştır. Bugünün yük ve yolcu ulaşımındaki eğilimlerin tespit edilmesi, gelecekteki ulaşım sistemine yön vermek bakımından önem taşımaktadır. Bu eğilimleri değiştiren unsurlar;ekonomik, sosyal, teknolojik ve çevresel başlıklarında incelenmiştir. Son olarak, COVÍD-19 salgının, mevcut eğilimlere ve ulaşımın paydaşlarına olan etkileri üzerinde durulmuştur. Bu makalenin amacı, kentsel ulaşımın gündemini oluşturan yeni ulaşım paradigmasına, değişen eğilimlere ve COVÍD salgının ulaşım üzerindeki etkilerine işaret etmektir. Makale, nitel araştırma yöntemiyle ikincil veri taramasına dayalı olarak kurgulanmıştır. Sonuç olarak ortaya çıkan yeni seyahat davranışları, hem dikkate alınması gereken bulgulardır, hem de sonuçlardır. Ulaşımda COVÍD-19 salgını nedeniyle hızlanan yeniden yapılanma süreci, son dönemde kentleri etkileyecek gelişmeleri tarif etmektedir. Yeni hareketlilik davranışları, şehir plancılarının mevcut ulaştırma pratiklerini gözden geçirmesini gerekli kılmaktadır.Alternate :For people living in cities;urban transport is a natural part of daily life. In the 20th century, an ordinary citizen can probably reach the place, she/he wants to go, with the help of a motor vehicle. Providing the necessary infrastructure for vehicles in cities has facilitated their usage. The widespread transportation vehicles, on the other hand, triggered the demand for travel and caused an increase in freight and passenger mobility. However, after a short period of time, the economic and environmental costs of transportation ceased to be bearable and the quality of life in cities decreased dramatically. Thus, cities and transportation plans focused on motor vehicles began to be questioned. In this way, the search for more sustainable transportation systems has begun. The new transportation paradigm, which considers accessibility, pedestrian, micro-mobility vehicles, has started to be mentioned more and more. First of all, this study started with a conceptual comparison of the existing transportation system and the new transportation paradigm that emerged with the reasons outlined above. The existence of the structure, human and traffic density in the cities enabled to emerge the solution from the cities. As cities have difficulty in carrying the burden of automobiles, the basic paradigm in the understanding transportation is questioned and new ideas come to the fore. Environmental pollution, high costs of time and fossil fuels;force citizens to produce healthier solutions in cities. The traditional transportation policies that are demand-oriented and based on the mobility of vehicles from one place to another has been out dated. This understanding has left its place o modern transportation policies. The changes in travel trends are discussed together with their reasons. Determining the trends in today’s freight and passenger transportation is important in terms of directing the future transportation system. The factors that change these trends are paraphrased under four headings: economic, social, technological and environmental. Finally, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on current trends and transportation stakeholders are emphasized. Local and global measures taken during the global pandemic caused transportation to be completely stopped or slowed down in certain periods. In fact, the pandemic did not only lead to change in passenger behaviors and demands, but also affected all stakeholders of transportation. In the article, its impacts on economic sectors, its impacts on individuals receiving transportation services and its impacts on the public sector are explained with examples. This study has been prepared to point out these issues that constitute the agenda of urban transportation. The article was created with a qualitative research method and was constructed based on secondary data searching. The analysis and policy reports of international institutions on a global scale were examined, and the issues on the agenda in academic studies were discussed. As a result, new travel behaviors are both findings and consequences to consider. The restructuring process of transportation, which has accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, describes the developments that will affect cities the most in the recent period. New mobility behaviors make it necessary for city planners to review existing transport practices. Consequently new travel behaviors are both findings and consequences to be considered. The restructuring process, which has to accelerate due to the COVID-19 pandemic in transportation, describes the developments that will affect the cities the most in the recent period. New mobility behaviors make it necessary for city planners to review existing transportation practices. The existing legal/administrative structure needs to be restructured. Renewed structure of transport system needs to gain the competence to meet the requirements.

Urban Air Pollution, Urban Heat Island and Human Health: A Review of the Literature

Many cities of the world suffer from air pollution because of poor planning and design and heavy traffic in rapidly expanding urban environments. These conditions are exacerbated due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. While there have been studies linking the built environment and air pollution with health, they have ignored the aggravating role of UHI. The past urban planning literature in this field has also ignored the science of materials, vehicles and air pollution, and technological solutions for reducing cumulative health impacts of air pollution and UHI. Air Pollution, built environment and human health are complex discussion factors that involve several different fields. The built environment is linked with human health through opportunities of physical activity and air quality. Recent planning literature focuses on creating compact and walkable urban areas dotted with green infrastructure to promote physical activity and to reduce vehicle emission-related air pollution. Reduced car use leading to reduced air pollution and UHI is implied in the literature. The literature from technology fields speaks to the issue of air pollution directly. Zero emission cars, green infrastructure and building materials that absorb air pollutants and reduce UHI fall within this category. This paper identifies main themes in the two streams of urban air pollution and UHI that impact human health and presents a systematic review of the academic papers, policy documents, reports and features in print media published in the last 10–20 years.

Reliability and Resource Allocation and Recovery of Urban Transportation System Considering the Virus Transmission

The urban transport system is an integral part of a city and is essential for the proper functioning of other urban functional systems. To improve the resilience of urban transport systems under the background of the spreading COVID-19 epidemic, this paper predicts the number of patients of various types at each stage of epidemic development based on an improved infectious disease model for Wuhan and verifies the validity of the model using statistical methods. Then, a system reliability model is developed from the perspective of controlling the spread of the virus and reducing economic losses, and the optimal time points for urban traffic closure and recovery are determined. Finally, a resource allocation optimization model was developed to determine the number and location of resource allocation points which based on 19 hospitals to avoid the further spread of the virus. The results give a valuable reference for enhancing the resilience of urban transport systems and improving their performance in all phases.

A systematic review of the impacts of the coronavirus crisis on urban transport: Key lessons learned and prospects for future cities.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on the transport sector worldwide. Lockdown and physical distancing requirements continue to be enforced in many cities leading to severe travel restrictions and travel demand reduction to limit the spread of the disease. This article provides bibliometric evidence-based insights into how the pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of established public transport systems and shared mobility solutions. It shows how some transport interventions can accelerate the shift to sustainable urban mobility practices such as micro-mobility and active transport. To accomplish this, the article examines recent studies (244 publications) from the Scopus database using a rigorous systematic literature review approach covering the period from January 2020 to February 2021. Importantly, the mapping of bibliographic coupling and co-citation analysis showed four heterogeneous clusters representing research efforts into "environment", "travel behavior and mode choice", "public transport", and "interventions". Inductive reasoning is used to analyze the disruptions that cities have encountered worldwide, the rapid interventions that were put in place, the aftershocks and the short and long-term impacts. Finally, the paper summarizes the lessons learned and opportunities ahead, and the challenges that must be overcome. The article also outlines pathways to build on the momentum of sustainable practices as part of a holistic approach for enabling resilient transport solutions for the new urban world.

Carsharing services in sustainable urban transport: An inclusive science map of the field

Vehicle sharing, electrification, and automation, as the triple revolutions in urban transportation, have been under debate towards a new transport paradigm. In this regard, carsharing services, as a potential solution for sustainable urban transport, have gained momentum within the context of sustainable cities in recent years. This research, as the first attempt in the literature, aims to render a comprehensive map of the body of knowledge in the carsharing field of research through conducting a systematic bibliometric analysis. To achieve that, a total of 729 peer-reviewed journal articles from the Web of Science database were scrutinized using keyword, text mining, and bibliographic coupling analyses. The analyses revealed four main research themes building the carsharing literature, including (1) collaborative consumption and carsharing business models development in the context of sustainable urban transport, (2) carsharing adoption with a special focus on user behavior, intention, and preferences, (3) carsharing operational challenges, considering infrastructure and fleet management, and (4) technological advancement towards deployment of shared autonomous vehicles and mobility as a service. The results showed that the carsharing literature lacks (i) a well-established and comprehensive long-term sustainability assessment framework, (ii) inclusive and integrative marketing and training plans, as well as effective incentives, (iii) a holistic analysis of the role of carsharing in the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, (iv) reliable circular economy indicators designed to measure the circularity of carsharing to help transitioning towards a circular economy, and (v) a timely broad analysis on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the future of carsharing post pandemic era, which call for more investigations in the future. The provided insights support both researchers and policy-makers by shedding light on carsharing services research by providing a state-of-the-art of carsharing studies and developments up to date, uncovering the emergent research themes and trends, and identifying research gaps for future studies towards better positioning carsharing services in sustainable cities developments.

Economic, Ecological and Social Analysis Based on DEA and MCDA for the Management of the Madrid Urban Public Transportation System

The aim of this research is to help public transport managers to make decisions on the type of buses that should compose their public transport fleet, taking into account economic, environmental and social criteria from the point of view of sustainability. This paper fills a knowledge gap by including the social dimension of sustainability in addition to the economic and environmental dimensions. The original nature of this study lies in analyzing complementarities in the structuring of an efficiency and multicriteria problem. Our research analyzes Madrid public bus system data;the problem is structured in a comparative way between two analytical methods, a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and an ELimination Et Choice Translating REality (ELECTRE) III. Our research results show that two main groups of vehicles could play a part in part the theoretical solution. The main conclusions of this research are that (a) plug-in and induction electric vehicles are not comparable to GNC and diesel–hybrid vehicles in terms of cost, pollution and service;and (b) the ELECTRE III model provides more information in solving this problem than the DEA model.

Improving urban bicycle infrastructure - An exploratory study based on the effects from the COVID-19 lockdown

Introduction During the COVID-19 lockdown significant improvements in urban air quality were detected due to the absence of motorized vehicles. It is crucial to perpetuate such improvements to maintain and improve public health simultaneously. Therefore, this exploratory study approached bicycle infrastructure in the case of Munich (Germany) to find out which specific bicycle lanes meet the demands of its users, how such infrastructure looks like, and which characteristics are potentially important. Methods To identify patterns of bicycle infrastructure in Munich exploratory data is collected over the timespan of three consecutive weeks in August by a bicycle rider at different times of the day. We measure position, time, velocity, pulse, level of sound, temperature and humidity. In the next step, we qualitatively identified different segments and applied a cluster analysis to quantitatively describe those segments regarding the measured factors. The data allows us to identify which bicycle lanes have a particular set of measurements, indicating a favorable construction for bike riders. Results In the exploratory dataset, five relevant segment clusters are identified: viscous, slow, inconsistent, accelerating, and best-performance. The segments that are identified as best-performance enable bicycle riders to travel efficiently and safely at amenable distances in urban areas. They are characterized by their width, little to no interaction with motorized traffic as well as pedestrians, and effective traffic light control. Discussion We propose two levels of discussion: (1) revolves around what kind of bicycles lanes from the case study can help to increase bicycle usage in urban areas, while simultaneously improving public health and mitigating climate change challenges and (2) discussing the possibilities, limitations and necessary improvements of this kind of exploratory methodology.

Pandemic waves and the time after Covid-19 - Consequences for the transport sector.

This paper discusses the dual role of the transport sector in the Covid-19 pandemic: spreading the virus around the world and being most negatively impacted by the pandemic. This paper describes and analyzes the following: (a) actions taken by the governments and international community in order to control the spreading and to alleviate negative economic impacts including massive fiscal and monetary stimulus funding; (b) detailed discussions on the impacts of the pandemic on air transport, rail and bus transport, and urban transit, and major countries' responses to reduce the negative effects; (c) discussions on the positive effects of the pandemic on the environment and climate change by suggesting policy measures in order to make it sustainable over the long term. Finally, the paper addresses social acceptance issue of the behavioral changes necessary in the post-pandemic world, in particular reflecting historical experience of the Spanish flu case. We end the paper with some observations and discussion of the normative issues for a sustainable development of the transport sector.