Question

following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, travel restractions have been imposed. Discuss the impacts ( positve and negative ) of these travel restrictions on all aspects of transportation including mobility, safety, and enviroment

Answer 1

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 most countries have resorted to partial or complete lockdown of cities in order to restrict movement of people and thus limiting the exposure to the Coronavirus. The transport sector is among the hardest hit sector due to these extreme measures.

To understand the impact of travel restriction on the transportation sector we may need to think in terms of the impact on individual components of this sector. For example we can divide transportation into public or private transport. Then we can sub-divide public transport into railways, roadways and aviation sector. This can be divided further into mass tranport systems (buses, trams, metro, etc.) or on-demand system (eg. Uber). But this much detail is not necessary.

Profitability:

In general, for passenger transport the demand of the use has come down significantly thus drying up the revenues in most public transport systems. Frequent sanitisation has added to the cost. On-demand service providers are severly hit too. While most public transport systems have funding from the government so they can survive in the long run, it can not be said for the private sector projects and cab aggregator companies. They might survive in the short run but will have difficulty in maintaining medium to long term stability under stagnant demand. Though once demand pick up after easing of restrictions companies will be able to stabilise the revenues. The harderst hit sector is aviation where grounding airlines for months may lead them to bankruptcy. This is because the airlines in most countries run on small profit margin and have substantial maintenance costs.

The scenario in the freight category is better than passenger category because the supply of essential products (food, medicines, agricultural products etc.) is not affected. And many countries have not closed the operation of online retailes such as Amazon. However, shipping industry is hit negatively because supply chains are affected, and because the interlinkages are high due to globalised economy. Many countries have closed the ports and thus the turnaround times have been affected too.

Underconstruction Projects: Many underconstruction projects have been forced to work with limited labour, limited material and have to extend their deadlines. The delays and preventive safety precautions at work place (like social distancing, sanitisation of offices and equipment etc.) will definitely add to the project cost.

Mobility:

Many countries such as India have chosen to completely halt airlines, railways and public buses. Thus completely halting mobility by any means. But most countries have not put such tough restrictions. Thus we can say that local mobility is negatively affected by varying degree in most countries. However, global mobility is severly affected. People are either chosing to stay put for safety reasons or countries have put in place international travel restrictions. Anyhow, these restrictions are very dynamic and are continuously being modified to minimse the economic damage. But the sure thing is that tourism has been affected in most countries and will likely result in layoffs/ unemployment in hospitality sector.

Safety:

With less cars on the roads, road accidents have come down significantly. Especially in countries like India, which account for a major chunk of total road fatality in the world. Another positive news is that not only humans but the wildlife has been also benefitted from less traffic accidents mostly in forested areas. Another positive impact is that most transport systems which were busy round the clock and due for maintenance are making most of this time by upgrading and repairing. In future this will lead to less accidents.

The negative impact is that complex transport systems such as underground metros, tunnels etc., which are closed for few months will have to undergo thorough additional safety checks as per precaution or requirement.

Environment:

With news reports coming in from Venice, China, India it can be said that wildlife has benefitted the most from lesser interference from the humans. Turtles are hatching more in Thailand and wildlife is even roaming in urban areas. However many captive animals in the zoos or shops have had to face hunger and other problems.

The air pollution has been the least in decades in countries like China and India in decades. Vehicular pollution levels have come down significantly. There is crash in crude oil prices due to less demand. But this trend is likely to be short lived. Many countries have tried to benefit from it by using floating storage (crude oil storage in offshore locations using tanks or ships), which may result in accidental leakage of oil in seawater and can lead to damage of biodiversity and water pollution.

The rivers are clean again. This is due to the closure of industries due to low demand or due to legal restrictions. However, this is likely to be a short lived phenomena with industries ramping up production again in coming days. It did not take long after 2008 financial crisis was over to increase CO2 emission to new high levels.

Thus we can conclude that the restriction have resulted in positive as well as negative impacts on the transport sector. While positive impacts are noteworthy these are not likely to remain for long after restrictions are removed. But this worldwide lockdown has definitely given us an opportunity to debate alternative solutions in every sector including transport which will result in sustainable, equitable, inclusive developement. The future transport solutions will have to be not only cost efficient and reliable and sustainable but also resilient and adaptable to challenges such as Covid-19.