COVID-19 Addendum to Critical Issues in Transportation (2021) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 2-11
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Introduction I n early 2020, the United States experienced a rapidly unfolding global pandemic that travelers infected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) helped spread worldwide within weeks of its outbreak.
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use of remote technologies for teleworking and increased home goods delivery, reinforced trends already under way and identified in Critical Issues in Transportation 2019.8 However, the magnitude and potential permanence of these changes raise many new and unanticipated questions about future travel demand and modal preferences. The COVID-19 pandemic also exposed the transportation system's strengths and fragilities as the backbone of the nation's supply chain and lifeline for essential services.
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Will interest in avoiding person-to-person contact during the pandemic stimulate greater demand afterward for these technologies? The pandemic might well motivate faster automation of workplaces that require people to work in close proximity, especially in warehouses already actively automating, but how would that extend to movement of people and goods?
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emissions? To what extent will increases in SOV travel be offset by increased cycling, walking, use of micromobility modes (including shared bikes and scooters)
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Safety and Public Health Key public health issues arising from the pandemic include the risk of becoming infected during travel (for travelers and transportation workers) and how that can be mitigated through technology and operating practices.27 CDC guidance in June 2020 stated that COVID-19 is mainly spread from person to person through respiratory droplets.
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during 2020, traffic safety trends have also been troubling. Data from the first half of 2020 indicate that, although the number of traffic fatalities declined due to travel reductions, the rate of fatalities apparently increased sharply from 1.1 to 1.25 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles.30 These increases are attributed to increased speeding, reduced use of safety belts, increased driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and reduced enforcement.31 During past economic downturns, both the number and rate of traffic deaths declined, raising questions about why experience during the pandemic-induced economic downturn of 2020 is so different and what policies and strategies could address the heighted traffic safety risks.
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Governance The multiple and sometimes fragmented lines of governmental authority in the United States have their advantages in a pluralistic democracy rooted in a suspicion of concentrated power, but their limitations were made manifest in the inconsistent federal, state, and local responses to the pandemic. The causes and consequences of these limitations are far broader than transportation, but transportation research could examine sources of failures and successes in transportation's role in emergency response across levels of government.
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Over the long term, will changes in personal and freight travel demand affect pending decisions about, and long-range plans for, system capacity? Funding and Finance Transportation agencies and private companies alike depend on a vast array of user fees and charges that declined in proportion with reduced demand.
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of seaports worldwide were reporting reduced vessel calls, a figure that had improved only 5 percentage points by mid-July.36 Demand effects varied considerably across the domestic trucking industry, with those segments serving manufacturing declining sharply and those serving essential retail establishments, especially grocery stores, experiencing increased demand.37 In the short term, the pandemic wreaked havoc on supply chains and revealed critical weaknesses in stockpiling strategies in logistics systems that minimize inventory and depend heavily on Asian sources.38 As opposed to problems associated with stockpiling and the need to move goods from distant sources, how well did transportation carriers meet the heightened demand to transport available PPE and critical medical supplies? With decreased traffic congestion, vehicle speeds increased.
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Research and Innovation As policy makers and health professionals tried to gauge the effectiveness of stay-at-home measures, a vast array of recently developed travel data and algorithms40 were made available and became useful indicators of how much and how effectively the public was practicing social distancing. Many questions arise about the data derived from smartphone usage, including privacy, consent, representativeness,41 and archiving.
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