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On the London Underground, Piccadilly Circus station is nearly vacant on a weekday morning, while the Delhi Metro carries less than half of the passengers it used to carry. In Rio, unpaid bus drivers went on strike. New York subway traffic is only a third of what it was before the pandemic.
A year after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, public transport is hanging by a thread in many cities around the world. Passengers stay at home or fear boarding buses and trains. And without their fares, transit revenues have fallen off a cliff. In some places, the service has been cut. In others, fares have increased and transit workers face the prospect of layoffs.
It is a disaster for the world’s ability to deal with this other global crisis: climate change. Public transit offers cities a relatively easy way to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention a way to improve air quality, noise and congestion.
“We are perhaps facing the most significant crisis in the public transport sector in different regions of the world,” Sérgio Avelleda, director of urban mobility at the World Resources Institute and former secretary of transport of São Paulo, told the Brazil. “It is urgent to take action.”
But how to act? Transportation agencies that have been bailed out by the government are wondering how long the bounty will last, and almost everywhere transportation experts are scrambling to figure out how to best tailor transit to the needs of riders as cities begin to exit. of the pandemic.
Right now, people just don’t travel much. Even in cities like Delhi, where most businesses are open, many office workers work from home, and universities haven’t resumed in-person classes. Paris has a 6 p.m. curfew.
In some places, fear of the virus has caused people to get into cars. In the United States, used car sales have exploded, as have used car prices. In India, a company that sells used cars online saw its sales increase in 2020 and its own value as a business soared to $ 1 billion, according to media reports. Elsewhere, bicycle sales have increased, suggesting people are pedaling a little more.
Concern for the future is twofold. If commuters are avoiding public transport for cars as their cities recover from the pandemic, it has huge consequences for air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. More importantly, if transit systems continue to lose revenue from passenger fares, they will not be able to make the investments necessary to be efficient, safe and attractive to commuters.
There are a few outliers. In Shanghai, for example, the number of public transport dropped in February 2020, but cyclists have returned as new coronavirus infections remain low and the economy rebounds.
But the situation is grim in many other cities.
On the Paris metro, ridership was just over half of normal during the first two months of this year. Île-de-France Mobilités, the Paris metropolitan area’s transport agency, said it lost 2.6 billion euros, or more than $ 3 billion, last year. The agency projects a shortfall of an additional billion euros this year.
In Amsterdam, the number of riders on city trams and buses is about a third of normal, and the transit agency’s website advises people to “only travel when absolutely necessary.” necessary”. In Rome, metro use remains below half of pre-pandemic levels.
One of the busiest underground networks in the world, the London Underground, which normally registers around four million journeys every day of the week, is currently operating at around 20% of its normal capacity. Buses are a bit more crowded, running at around 40% of normal. The transit agency, which once projected a budget surplus for 2020, is instead relying on government bailouts since the pandemic hit. He predicts that it will take at least two years for public transport use to return to pre-pandemic levels.
“It was quite devastating, to be perfectly honest,” said Alex Williams, planning director for Transport for London. “One of our concerns is the substantial decrease in public transport and the increase in the rate of car use.”
London is one of the few cities in the world to have a congestion tax designed to reduce car traffic in the city center. London and Paris have sought to use the locks to widen cycle lanes.
In the Indian capital, New Delhi, the metro reopened last September after a suspension of several months. In February 2021, ridership was less than 2.6 million, compared to more than 5.7 million for the same month the previous year, and bus traffic was just over half of pre-pandemic levels.
Fortunately, these agencies, as in India and across Europe, are subsidized by their governments. There is even more distress in cities where people largely depend on private bus companies.
In Lagos, Nigeria, fares have doubled on private bus lines for trips over a mile, or just over half a mile.
In Rio de Janeiro, a once famous bus network is in ruins. The private company that runs the system has cut more than a third of its fleet and laid off 800 employees, with passenger numbers halving since last March, according to the city’s transport service. Bus driver strikes have made bus journeys even slower and more chaotic.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said José Carlos Sacramento, 68, leader of a bus union in Rio, who has worked in public transport for five decades. “I don’t think it will ever get back to normal.”
City officials have said they hope to use the crisis as an opportunity to overhaul the system, including persuading private bus companies to be more transparent about their operations in return for possible government financial assistance.
After all, said Maína Celidonio, chief of the city’s transportation department, a clean and efficient bus system is essential for Rio not only to reduce its carbon emissions, but also to purify its air. “It’s not just an environmental issue, but a public health issue,” Celidonio said.
The biggest challenge for all cities is to fix their public transport systems now so that passengers will come back, said Mohamed Mezghani, head of the International Association of Public Transport. They could adjust service during peak hours as teleworking from home becomes more common, expand bus-only lanes that make travel more efficient and comfortable, or improve ventilation systems to assure citizens that public transit. is safe.
“Cities that invest will come out stronger,” Mezghani said. “People will feel more comfortable traveling in a new, modern transit system. It’s a question of perception in the end.
Shola lawal and Hari Kumar | contribution to reports.
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