Preventive healthcare, micro-mobility catalyzing future of urban transport

As various countries are gradually easing lockdowns to increase economic activities, the first challenge they are facing is - to introduce preventive healthcare in their transport systems to win over the confidence of passengers. However, several economies have shown environmental concerns in their revival plan, China crossed its pre-pandemic level of air pollution in about 40 days of post-lockdown economic activities. The recent trends in urban transport are in line with the predictions made by COE-EDP.

COVID-19 pandemic has set the stage for a revolution in the transport sector, particularly in urban transport. The highly contagious virus has not only brought in public healthcare at the core of urban transport but made it mandatory to take care health of every single passenger with equal emphasis. This is because an urban transport system will be as resilient to COVID-19 as it's the weakest link.

This is contrasting to the pre-pandemic narrative of public transport wherein the entire urban transport planning was based on maximum carriage capacity and minimum travel time. The public health in the pre-pandemic period of public transport was an external thing primarily limited to extending medical care to the accident victims. Today, the urban transport throughout the world is facing challenges at three levels – disinfection of vehicles and infrastructure, preventive measures for individual passengers and maintaining increased personal space for every single passenger to implement social distancing guidelines. Furthermore, urban planners throughout the world are burning the midnight oil to find new sustainable solutions for human mobility.

The state-of-the-art urban transport infrastructures such as metros, monorail and BRT corridors, etc., all are facing the same problems in ensuring public health and implementing social distancing as they were alien concepts in the pre-pandemic period. Center of Excellence on Emerging Development Perspectives (COE-EDP) in an analysis titled ‘Urban transport post-COVID-19: Planned lockdowns may be normal to counter air pollution’ had explained the challenges before existing transport systems and also predicted feasible solutions to address those issues. Here we present an analysis of the recent trends in urban transport.

Public Healthcare in Urban Transport: How systems are coping up?

Urban transport had been one of the most vibrant and profit-making areas of the economy in the pre-pandemic period which also attracted huge private investments. The growing population of big (metropolitan) cities, dependent satellite cities, and sub-urban areas caused the need for huge transport infrastructure to facilitate commuting. However, this congestion centric model of urban transport collapsed before the pandemic. In the post-lockdown period, urban transport is coping up with the crisis as follows: 

• Reducing Capacity: Social distancing or increasing personal space for every passenger has been the first step for public transport across economies deciding to ease lockdowns. Transport for London (TfL), the company providing transport services for the city, had to reduce the demand for busses and underground railways by 85 percent. The company further clarified that it would be able to carry out about 13-15 percent of the normal number of passengers on the Tube and bus networks even when 100 percent of services are operating once again over time. The transport authorities throughout the world are running from 30 to 50 percent less than their sanctioned carrying capacity.
• Modification of Vehicles: Honda modified 10 minivans by retrofitting them with a plastic barrier behind the front seating area and a modified ventilation system to maintain an air pressure differential between the front and rear seating areas to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission. These vans turned ambulances were provided to Detroit city of the USA for transporting health officials and COVID-19 suspects. The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is working on a proposal to modify 36 seater busses into 26 seater busses for the post-lockdown period with facilities of online bookings and other contactless measures to protect passengers.
• Technology: Global auto major Ford has developed a software for police vehicles that eliminates 99 percent COVID-19 by heating the interior of vehicles at 133 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes.
• Accessories: India's largest carmaker Maruti introduced COVID-19 protective accessories such as a three-ply face mask, protective goggles, show cover, hand gloves, and face shield visor to protect the passengers and drivers from infection.
• Driver’s Care: China’s Didi Chuxinig, the world’s leading mobility, and convenience platform, announced $10 million funds for drivers who test positive for COVID-19.
• Passengers’ Safety: Didi group has also introduced several protective and informative measures for the safe riding of passengers and drivers. Besides, taxi aggregators such as Ola, Turo, and Uber have also introduced sanitation and protective measures for drivers and passengers. Uber recently announced the operation of its Premier and XL services for safe and convenient airport travel in Chennai.
• Investment: While other automobile companies are suffering a huge loss, DiDi secured $500 million investment from Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund on May 29 for its autonomous driver division or Robo-taxi.
• Incentives: Germany is working on a proposal to launch a 5 million Euro bonus scheme for electric car purchasers.
• Disinfection services: Auto major Nisan has designed communication for cleaning and disinfecting vehicles while British business service group Rentokil launched disinfection services for vehicles from COVID-19.

The governments and corporates throughout the world are working to upgrade the existing public transport system to meet the challenges of COVID 19 and provide safe travel to passengers. Reduced capacities of public transport are in fact more than the official figures as the public transport busses, trains, metros, railways, etc., used to carry more passengers than their official number of seats as several passengers were standing travelers in the pre-pandemic period. There is a need for more innovations in public transport to ensure maximum contactless services and preventive measures for passengers which could protect them even at less social distancing or personal space.

Besides, pollution and green technologies should also be the focus on reviving urban mobility to achieve maximum resilience and sustainability. Strongly recommending green public transport, a recent study by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has suggested that 10 million additional jobs could be created worldwide if 50 percent of all vehicles manufactured were electric.

Trends in Micro-mobility

The pandemic caused maximum loss to the world but made humans sensitive towards the environment and nature. They lost their loved ones but during the lockdown, they witnessed the clean and fresh air, clean water bodies, and the purest form of nature. The emphasis on micro-mobility got momentum during the pandemic as the lockdown cleaned pollution in several highly polluted cities and made the air fresh to the pre-industrial levels which were unimaginable in the pre-pandemic period.

It seems a public driven movement to which the governments worldwide are following by creating infrastructure. The efforts are being made at local, national as well as the regional level to provides facilities for micro-mobility services such as bicycles, which has about two-centuries-old history, and e-bikes/ scooters. The bicycles have again become popular among people across age groups in several cities of Europe and South America. Some of the initiatives for micro-mobility are as follows: 

• Brussels approved half a million budget to facelift cycling infrastructure, create 6,000 additional parking spaces for bikes, and 40 km of a new cycle path.
• Britain has announced to invest $2.5 billion in creating ‘cycling and walking’ facilities as part of its COVID 19 recovery plan for public transport.
• Paris will add 50 km of bike lanes to its existing 1,000 km of cycling lanes by the summer along the busiest metro routes.
• The UK authorities are also working on the e-scooters scheme with a maximum speed of 32 kmph and integrate the micro-mobility system with the existing public transport network.
• Several capital cities in Latin America such as Bogota, Lima, Quito, Santiago, and Buenos Aires are working to enhance their micro-mobility services with a focus on bicycles and e-bikes (two-wheelers).
• Hero Motors Company (HMC) Group, India’s global cycle and bike manufacturer, supported the ‘cycle to work’ scheme of the UK and also restarted manufacturing in its plants.
• UNCEC member countries in Europe have jointly launched a task force to develop a set of principles for green and healthy sustainable mobility.

The high demand for bicycles has created short supply in several cities of Europe and maintenance shops have bookings for weeks. However, these people-driven initiatives yet to come in the form of micro-mobility models and face the test of time in the post-pandemic world.

Teleportation: Can a robot end the need for transport?

Hi-tech video conferencing solutions made the ‘work from home’ a new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic by creating a virtual meeting place in the cloud and providing the experience of physical presence through telepresence without covering the distance – teleportation. Though several companies were already implementing ‘remote work’ as per their needs, the pandemic forced a complete transformation in the workplaces. 

Several big companies such as Facebook and Google announced work from home till the end of 2020 while some others such as Tech Mahindra have asked its 25 percent employees to 'work from home' till March 2021.  Besides companies throughout the world have canceled their physical events to avoid the spread of the virus.

However, a big announcement came from Cisco and AVA Robotics which have claimed to develop a system with the help of a robot to provide the users with full complete teleportation experience. The remote-controlled robot will provide highly teleportation facilities with a feeling of real presence to the host as well as the guest. Though not affordable by all, the technology may be beneficial for the companies requiring travel at the time of COVID 19.

The Bottom Line

The trends in the industry are largely motivated by the desperation of the stakeholders to save their businesses. Therefore, they are engaged in patchwork to anyhow upgrade the existing systems and save them from the pandemic. Presently, there is hardly any comprehensive transport planning for urban mobility suitable to the post-pandemic world.

There is a great need for holistic urban mobility planning which, besides urban mobility, also includes urban planning, sustainable living, sanitation, workplaces, supply chains, care services, and waste management. These sustainable cities will be interconnected but not interdependent like satellite cities and sub-urban areas.

Various studies suggest that during the strict lockdown in April the global pollution went down by 17 percent but it’s again inching towards pre-pandemic level. Wuhan, the epicentre of COVID-19, faced lockdown from January 23 to April 7. The lockdown was revoked on April 8 but reviving Chinese economy crossed the pre-lockdown level of pollution in about 40 days. As more and more economies are desperately pushing for achieving a pre-pandemic level of growth in the shortest possible time, the fears of pollution will soon be a reality. Therefore, we reiterated our recommendation for ‘globally planned lockdowns’ to reduce carbon emission and meet the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement 2015 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030). Besides, the parallel efforts should also be made at all the levels for clean energy-driven green transport systems.

The planned lockdowns could be designed to minimize the adverse impacts on the economy and increase the environmental benefits as per their needs on local, national, and global levels.

Centre of Excellence on Emerging Development Perspectives (COE-EDP) is an initiative of VisionRI and aims to keep track of the transition trajectory of the global development sector and works towards conceptualization, development, and mainstreaming of innovative developmental approaches, frameworks, and practices.