can public transport ever recover from COVID-19

[greyman42]

Exactly this - the government must stop scaring people about the risks of catching COVID 19 and educate them. For the great great majority catching it will result in nothing other than just a mild illness just like catching anything else does.

This is exactly what needs to happen. I think the problem with doing this would be that the government would be contradicting just about everything that they have saying since March.

 

[bramling]

This is exactly what needs to happen. I think the problem with doing this would be that the government would be contradicting just about everything that they have saying since March.

Yes it still seemd to be the case that a proportion of the population over-estimate the various risk statistics associated with C19. The government bear some responsibility for this.

 

[PTR 444]

Hopefully today’s announcement of a vaccine will bring some much needed optimism to the railway companies wishing to see the return of passengers.

 

[Bikeman78]

Meaning traffic and hence pollution and accidents will increase leading to more deaths. What an achievement.

I think people will come back in the summer. The M5 is a car park on summer weekends. It's fun to whizz past them all on an HST.

 

[jon0844]

If this poll is correct, then it sounds like public transport operators will have a hard time getting people back onto public transport.

I am sure it is correct based on what people are thinking now, but I don't think it will take people that long to want to go back to public transport and avoid the traffic and parking issues.

At the moment, it's nice and quiet so driving isn't too bad (but in the last few months, it has been getting back towards normality around my home) but driving stops you having that down time to check your phone, watch another episode of your favourite TV series boxset bingeing, read a paper and sip your coffee.

If a lot more people work from home, trains and tubes will be quieter too, so more appealing than they once were.

If everyone takes to their car, parking will be a problem (as well as expensive).

 

[The Ham]

Unsurprising as we're in lockdown again.

There's two points that I'll make on that.

Frstly it's taking to car drivers, which will always skew the results a little.

Secondly whilst people are likely to think that their car is more essential, that doesn't mean that they won't use it less or (probably a more important step) have fewer of them in their household which could result in more occasional rail travel (the odd trip when the car is in use by others to go and see friends/relatives).

Anyway, as others have said, I wouldn't read too much into one study. Especially given that if we see traffic reach 105% or more of pre lockdown levels then traffic congestion would be very bad. As we are effectively having school holiday traffic during term time at the moment, and congestion gets significantly worse the closer to the capacity of a junction (up to 85% everything works fine, but as you get past 90% the congestion gets a lot worse with each percentage point increase with each percussive increase resulting in a bigger increase than the one before and when it reaches 105% then queues and delays start to be very significant and measured in minutes).

As such of road use did go above 98% of pre lockdown levels then people would probably be very shocked by how bad the roads were as they've got used to how things are currently.

For instance if a vaccine was delivered between April and August, so everything could reopen in September, then I would expect that there would be a lot of people who were very late for work (especially if it was also wet that week) that first week back as the roads would suddenly be back to full use.

 

[squizzler]

Frstly it's taking to car drivers, which will always skew the results a little.

My thoughts exactly.

In fact the hardening of motorists' perception of reliance on their cars might be due to confirmation bias kicking in.

In a similar way to how many of us in the UK look aghast at the trenchant views of supporters of the US president, whose views harden as the evidence against his character grows, the more emotionally invested members of the motoring community might be having to work harder in their own minds to justify the expense of maintaining a car when there are fewer places to drive it under 'lockdown'. There is also a greater awareness of air quality issues and the popularity amongst the wider public of pandemic measures to reallocate road space to cycle and foot traffic adding to further evidence against the status quo the more emotionally invested motorist might be trying to refute. This is reflected in the survey results.

The public as a whole are not putting their money where there mouth is. I read in the Telegraph that UK car sales are back to those of the early 1980s - nearly four decades regression. I understand from this forum that rail ridership has been pushed back only half that amount to the turn of the millennium.

 

[yorksrob]

The public are fickle.

Once the pandemic fades, people will rediscover the joys of a trip out with friends and a few beers without the hastle of parking.

 

[Ianno87]

The public are fickle.

Once the pandemic fades, people will rediscover the joys of a trip out with friends and a few beers without the hastle of parking.

1000 x Agree

 

[7 Ingleborough]

I don't think we will ever see a peak hour commuting pattern like it used to be, indeed we have been told to concentrate on improving the leisure market offering. I do think train interiors will change and will not be surprised if we see Inter City sets adopting variations along the lines of the Scottish 'Active Travel' class 153s. We have already worked out that it is possible to have 28 seats and 24 bikes in a standard class IET coach, with racks above the bikes for rucksacks, surfboards etc.
Home offices appeal to many companies as well as employees. The saving in floor space rental has been estimated to save one particular Canary Wharf bank nearly £2bn a year.

 

[bramling]

I don't think we will ever see a peak hour commuting pattern like it used to be, indeed we have been told to concentrate on improving the leisure market offering. I do think train interiors will change and will not be surprised if we see Inter City sets adopting variations along the lines of the Scottish 'Active Travel' class 153s. We have already worked out that it is possible to have 28 seats and 24 bikes in a standard class IET coach, with racks above the bikes for rucksacks, surfboards etc.
Home offices appeal to many companies as well as employees. The saving in floor space rental has been estimated to save one particular Canary Wharf bank nearly £2bn a year.

The thing with leisure travel is people are more easily put off by overcrowding. The industry will have go think beyond the "pack them all in tight" model if it wants to seriously tempt leisure users.

 

[Peter Sarf]

This is exactly what needs to happen. I think the problem with doing this would be that the government would be contradicting just about everything that they have saying since March.

The snag is the people who don't get very ill with Covid-19 then pass it on to people who can get very ill and some will die. The government then see the NHS getting buried again - nothing contradictory there. Public transport is seeing less travel because people are afraid of travelling in overcrowded conditions and because employers are doing the responsible thing of encouraging staff to work from home where possible.

As for masks. If they help travellers feel safer then so be it. It turns into a balancing act between those who prefer not to wear a mask and those who feel safer if those around them are wearing a mask. There are those who really cannot wear a mask. Given what Covid-19 is I prefer to be around people wearing masks and I therefore feel I should wear a mask also. I have got used to wearing masks all day long at work so I wear them in any public place. Masks are a cheap and easy way of reducing the risk - better than resorting to closing down public transport etc. It is not some big government conspiracy - there is a pandemic on you know ! (to paraphrase a WW2 saying).

 

[Richard Scott]

The snag is the people who don't get very ill with Covid-19 then pass it on to people who can get very ill and some will die. The government then see the NHS getting buried again - nothing contradictory there. Public transport is seeing less travel because people are afraid of travelling in overcrowded conditions and because employers are doing the responsible thing of encouraging staff to work from home where possible.

As for masks. If they help travellers feel safer then so be it. It turns into a balancing act between those who prefer not to wear a mask and those who feel safer if those around them are wearing a mask. There are those who really cannot wear a mask. Given what Covid-19 is I prefer to be around people wearing masks and I therefore feel I should wear a mask also. I have got used to wearing masks all day long at work so I wear them in any public place. Masks are a cheap and easy way of reducing the risk - better than resorting to closing down public transport etc. It is not some big government conspiracy - there is a pandemic on you know ! (to paraphrase a WW2 saying).

Can you quantify that masks are a cheap way to reduce the risk? I'd rather not travel wearing one and until this requirement disappears my level of travel will not return to what it was. There may (or may not) be many others like me and our money is as good as anyone else's.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Can you quantify that masks are a cheap way to reduce the risk? I'd rather not travel wearing one and until this requirement disappears my level of travel will not return to what it was. There may (or may not) be many others like me and our money is as good as anyone else's.

Well masks are certainly as cheap as washing hands. Masks are cheaper than social distancing where more space equals less capacity. Masks are significantly cheaper than a lockdown (or at least a longer lockdown).

As for costs related to ridership or otherwise. It boils down to how many people will refuse to travel because they have to wear a mask versus how many people will avoid travel because of the risks associated with catching something from an un-masked fellow traveller. The way I see it is that the risk to a genuine non-wearer of hassle is less than the risk of infection if fewer and fewer people wear masks.

So it follows that more passengers will be lost through fear of infection than will be lost through a desire to avoid wearing a mask. I think that is where the current drop in passenger numbers has come from.

I have got used to wearing a mask. I am sure some people have genuine medical etc reasons for not wearing a mask. I am sure there are people who just don't want to feel a mask is being imposed on them. I am sure Covid-19 is a real and dangerous threat to life and economy. A mask is a cheap tool we can use to reduce the costs. The result is more public transport ridership and more freedom to socialise.

 

[Richard Scott]

Well masks are certainly as cheap as washing hands. Masks are cheaper than social distancing where more space equals less capacity. Masks are significantly cheaper than a lockdown (or at least a longer lockdown).

As for costs related to ridership or otherwise. It boils down to how many people will refuse to travel because they have to wear a mask versus how many people will avoid travel because of the risks associated with catching something from an un-masked fellow traveller. The way I see it is that the risk to a genuine non-wearer of hassle is less than the risk of infection if fewer and fewer people wear masks.

So it follows that more passengers will be lost through fear of infection than will be lost through a desire to avoid wearing a mask. I think that is where the current drop in passenger numbers has come from.

I have got used to wearing a mask. I am sure some people have genuine medical etc reasons for not wearing a mask. I am sure there are people who just don't want to feel a mask is being imposed on them. I am sure Covid-19 is a real and dangerous threat to life and economy. A mask is a cheap tool we can use to reduce the costs. The result is more public transport ridership and more freedom to socialise.

With the risk of going off topic you've not actually given me any evidence that they make a difference. I'll accept hand washing as a sensible method of reducing spread. My point is that I won't wear one for anything more than an hour as can't deal with it so the railways are losing out on revenue as I would regularly make long trips by train. No good keep trying to justify something if a number of your customers don't want to follow that, revenue just won't increase.

 

[PhilipRdNGauge]

Well masks are certainly as cheap as washing hands. Masks are cheaper than social distancing where more space equals less capacity. Masks are significantly cheaper than a lockdown (or at least a longer lockdown).

As for costs related to ridership or otherwise. It boils down to how many people will refuse to travel because they have to wear a mask versus how many people will avoid travel because of the risks associated with catching something from an un-masked fellow traveller. The way I see it is that the risk to a genuine non-wearer of hassle is less than the risk of infection if fewer and fewer people wear masks.

So it follows that more passengers will be lost through fear of infection than will be lost through a desire to avoid wearing a mask. I think that is where the current drop in passenger numbers has come from.

I have got used to wearing a mask. I am sure some people have genuine medical etc reasons for not wearing a mask. I am sure there are people who just don't want to feel a mask is being imposed on them. I am sure Covid-19 is a real and dangerous threat to life and economy. A mask is a cheap tool we can use to reduce the costs. The result is more public transport ridership and more freedom to socialise.

I haven't been near a railway station for months, but I do see buses on my way to & from the park for my daily permitted exercise. The mere sight of two people in an otherwise deserted single decker wearing their masks is enough to put me off any kind of public transport. I don't mind the odd crank wearing a mask (one of my colleagues is Korean & I make allowances for his culture), but seeing ordinary people in masks is so alien to me, even after all this time, my mind won't tolerate it. Maybe my own anxiety over wearing a mask is increased by seeing other people wearing them, I don't know. Even though my anxiety makes me exempt from wearing one, I still don't want to be near other masked people.

Last year I spent over £1200 on off-peak train fares in the UK & another £600 overseas. This year I was planning to spend more, visiting preserved lines & other events most weekends, but my travelling expenses since February have been exactly £0. They will remain £0, until the public are advised "NOT To Wear Masks" & this whole fiasco is a distant memory. The culture of fear that the Government has created will take a long time to eradicate, even if the actual rules are relaxed. Whilst commuting for work may increase eventually when the country starts to open up again, I think it will take some time for leisure travel to recover. The message "Don't Travel, You Are Plague Carriers" that has been pushed by the TOCs for months will be hard to reverse.

 

[jon0844]

I'm not sure why you would be worried about someone else wearing a mask, just as many people from Asia have been doing when visiting the UK for many years.

I can't see any Government ever telling people not to wear a mask, even if the pandemic ends with a sufficiently effective vaccine.

I rather suspect we'll see a reduction in people getting colds and flu this year as a result of having better hygiene, and people wearing masks. I'm sure mask wearers will also suffer less from pollution/dust in cities.

 

[dk1]

I find one of the most enthralling sides to all this are the conspiracy theorists. Some of them at work are just pure entertainment to listen to in the messroom. The way some people's minds work almost to the point of driving them bonkers is often astounding.

 

[DB]

I find one of the most enthralling sides to all this are the conspiracy theorists. Some of them at work are just pure entertainment to listen to in the messroom. The way some people's minds work almost to the point of driving them bonkers is often astounding.

The trouble is, those who are very pro-restrictions tend to lump all of us who disagree together as 'conspiracy theorists', or 'granny killers'.

 

[trebor79]

I'm not sure why you would be worried about someone else wearing a mask, just as many people from Asia have been doing when visiting the UK for many years.

I can't see any Government ever telling people not to wear a mask, even if the pandemic ends with a sufficiently effective vaccine.

I rather suspect we'll see a reduction in people getting colds and flu this year as a result of having better hygiene, and people wearing masks. I'm sure mask wearers will also suffer less from pollution/dust in cities.

Nah, "better hygiene" is completely anathema to people wearing damp cloth on their faces. The sorts of things people are wearing are completely useless against dust an pollution too.
Honestly, the mask thing is just a placebo to make people "feel safer", as @Peter Sarf mentions above. The home-made, designer fabric and surgical masks people are wearing would be illegal and completely ineffective to use when working with something like asbestos, or even non-hazardous dusts in the workplace. Why people believe they can trap viruses, which are far smaller than physical dusts is beyond me. Fact 95% or more of your breath when wearing a non face-fitted mask is escaping around the sides - that's why glasses steam up when wearing the stupid things.

 

[telstarbox]

Perhaps unsurprisingly usage is back down to 31% - the latest week ended at the start of the second national lockdown.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Nov 2020 ==

Graph below.

 

[squizzler]

Rail usage was one twentieth its baseline amount during "lockdown mk1", and one third baseline in "lockdown mk2". This seems to confirm my theory that rail transport is "sticky" to any customers who have come back to it - they must decide after a few trips that there is nothing to worry about after all and continue doing it, lockdown or not.

In other words, since "lockdown mk1" finished in the summer it seems easier to get people onto trains than to get them off again with the new lockdown. Like a mechanical ratchet on a lifting device preventing a sudden fall. This is good news as it suggests every new person who can be persuaded to try rail represents another upwards click of the ratchet.

This means that effort needs to be concentrated on what we knew very well before the pandemic to be barriers preventing new customers trying rail such as the opaque fares system, or on active promotions such as a "head out to help out" scheme. There was little appetite to tackle these barriers when the industry was doing very well, but the pandemic is actually a golden opportunity to grasp the nettle.

 

[trebor79]

Rail usage was one twentieth its baseline amount during "lockdown mk1", and one third baseline in "lockdown mk2". This seems to confirm my theory that rail transport is "sticky" to any customers who have come back to it - they must decide after a few trips that there is nothing to worry about after all and continue doing it, lockdown or not.

In other words, since "lockdown mk1" finished in the summer it seems easier to get people onto trains than to get them off again with the new lockdown. Like a mechanical ratchet on a lifting device preventing a sudden fall. This is good news as it suggests every new person who can be persuaded to try rail represents another upwards click of the ratchet.

This means that effort needs to be concentrated on what we knew very well before the pandemic to be barriers preventing new customers trying rail such as the opaque fares system, or on active promotions such as a "head out to help out" scheme. There was little appetite to tackle these barriers when the industry was doing very well, but the pandemic is actually a golden opportunity to grasp the nettle.

TBH I don't think this "lockdown" is being applied anything like as hard as the first one. Basically "non-essential" shops, pubs and eat in restaurants are shut, and er, that's about it, other than some fairly unenforceable (in all except the most blatant examples) restrictions around social gatherings.
The roads seem as busy as usual and I have colleagues and friends who have continued to go into the office rather than revert to home working.
My father was taken into hospital on Sunday (non-COVID), so I've been going round to see my mother to give her some company and help out with some domestic stuff over the past few days. Strictly speaking that leaves me open to a Fixed Penalty Notice but I think the circumstance constitute a "reasonable excuse".

I think the public perception of risk is changing. Back in April we thought it was up to 5% death rate, and it's proved to be nothing like that, and most of the deaths concentrated in elderly people with other conditions. Except for my wife, who's now not seeing her (bubbled) mum (early 70's and no other health conditions) because a few people in the village have tested positive and there's a very theoretical and tenuous potential chain of transmission via children at school .
This change in risk perception is probably behind some of the stickiness in rail and other travel.

 

[Jamiescott1]

Chiltern are reducing services from Monday. Currently the new timetable is not published or any mention if this is temporary until lockdown is lifted.

My daily morning chiltern train has about the same loading as it did pre lockdown 2 - 1 person per double seats and some bays of 6 with 2 or 3 people.

My evening train home has been drastically quieter since last Thursday.

 

[Green tractor]

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Sme science. It is not about protecting the wearer. it is about stopping the wearer spreading the disease that they might have. Basically it stops you spitting at people and on surfaces.

Nah, "better hygiene" is completely anathema to people wearing damp cloth on their faces. The sorts of things people are wearing are completely useless against dust an pollution too.
Honestly, the mask thing is just a placebo to make people "feel safer", as @Peter Sarf mentions above. The home-made, designer fabric and surgical masks people are wearing would be illegal and completely ineffective to use when working with something like asbestos, or even non-hazardous dusts in the workplace. Why people believe they can trap viruses, which are far smaller than physical dusts is beyond me. Fact 95% or more of your breath when wearing a non face-fitted mask is escaping around the sides - that's why glasses steam up when wearing the stupid things.

 

[317 forever]

If we're going to be stuck with Covid maybe for many years to come, people aren't going to want to travel on even fairly full services, and certainly not to sit next to a stranger for any duration of time. This is going to present a huge challenge to the railways, and one that doesn't seem to have any obvious solution. They will probably have to raise fares radically to compensate for the reduction in passenger numbers.

I used to get irritated by people leaving their bag in the seat next to them. Now on my commute I enjoy having my bag for company.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Nov 2020 ==

The public are fickle.

Once the pandemic fades, people will rediscover the joys of a trip out with friends and a few beers without the hastle of parking.

This has already happened anyway, at lease before lockdown 2, with rail passenger numbers recovering more at weekends than during the week.

 

[yorksrob]

I used to get irritated by people leaving their bag in the seat next to them. Now on my commute I enjoy having my bag for company.

Yes, I feel a lot more justification in spreading out in that double seat nowadays !

 

[Jamesrob637]

I used to get irritated by people leaving their bag in the seat next to them. Now on my commute I enjoy having my bag for company.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 14 Nov 2020 ==


This has already happened anyway, at lease before lockdown 2, with rail passenger numbers recovering more at weekends than during the week.

Furlough did drop considerably after lockdown 1, chiefly Monday to Friday jobs. I have been on furlough throughout being in the travel industry so I have noticed off-peak trains on weekdays be as busy as erstwhile peak trains! I avoided weekend travel on public transport - not much point when I can/could do the same thing midweek.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I haven't been near a railway station for months, but I do see buses on my way to & from the park for my daily permitted exercise. The mere sight of two people in an otherwise deserted single decker wearing their masks is enough to put me off any kind of public transport. I don't mind the odd crank wearing a mask (one of my colleagues is Korean & I make allowances for his culture), but seeing ordinary people in masks is so alien to me, even after all this time, my mind won't tolerate it. Maybe my own anxiety over wearing a mask is increased by seeing other people wearing them, I don't know. Even though my anxiety makes me exempt from wearing one, I still don't want to be near other masked people.

Last year I spent over £1200 on off-peak train fares in the UK & another £600 overseas. This year I was planning to spend more, visiting preserved lines & other events most weekends, but my travelling expenses since February have been exactly £0. They will remain £0, until the public are advised "NOT To Wear Masks" & this whole fiasco is a distant memory. The culture of fear that the Government has created will take a long time to eradicate, even if the actual rules are relaxed. Whilst commuting for work may increase eventually when the country starts to open up again, I think it will take some time for leisure travel to recover. The message "Don't Travel, You Are Plague Carriers" that has been pushed by the TOCs for months will be hard to reverse.

My partner commutes by bus. that is £1,300 per year (£25/week). I don't think leisure travel is a significant part of public transport's income - yet.

I find one of the most enthralling sides to all this are the conspiracy theorists. Some of them at work are just pure entertainment to listen to in the messroom. The way some people's minds work almost to the point of driving them bonkers is often astounding.

A few people where I work are insistent that the hospitals were not overrun at all. One cites that A&E was virtually empty - I cannot convince him that behind the public area was a full ICU. Until there are people writhing on the floor in the public part of A&E due to overcrowding then we wont convince them. Its a two edged sword of course - perhaps many people that are still travelling are doing so because they think it is all a figment of some scientists imagination.

Nah, "better hygiene" is completely anathema to people wearing damp cloth on their faces. The sorts of things people are wearing are completely useless against dust an pollution too.
Honestly, the mask thing is just a placebo to make people "feel safer", as @Peter Sarf mentions above. The home-made, designer fabric and surgical masks people are wearing would be illegal and completely ineffective to use when working with something like asbestos, or even non-hazardous dusts in the workplace. Why people believe they can trap viruses, which are far smaller than physical dusts is beyond me. Fact 95% or more of your breath when wearing a non face-fitted mask is escaping around the sides - that's why glasses steam up when wearing the stupid things.

The common/simple mask is to protect others from the WEARERS spray. The spray droplets are quite large as they leave the mouth / nose so easy for a mask to collect. Within the droplet is the virus. A person will not know they have Covid-19 at the stage where they can spread it so a mask is a precaution. As the droplets float through the air they evaporate so the droplet becomes smaller and harder for a mask to catch. So to protect YOURSELF you do need a better mask - one that is potentially harder to breath in. When the spray droplet has completely evaporated the virus within it dies - it needs moisture to survive. So the further people are a apart then the less chance there is of someone inhaling enough of the virus to get infected or getting it on other pats of the body that are vulnerable to attack. On public transport that social distancing limits the number of people who can travel unless masks are used. So to get more people safely on public transport relies on people to wear a mask. Not wearing a mask puts your fellow travellers at risk.

 

[yorksrob]

A few people where I work are insistent that the hospitals were not overrun at all. One cites that A&E was virtually empty - I cannot convince him that behind the public area was a full ICU. Until there are people writhing on the floor in the public part of A&E due to overcrowding then we wont convince them. Its a two edged sword of course - perhaps many people that are still travelling are doing so because they think it is all a figment of some scientists imagination.

Or perhaps people are travelling for reasons that the guidance allows.

Thay haven't nailed us up in our homes just yet.