The resilience of public transport post-COVID: The case of Great Britain

Abstract

A highly contagious disease, COVID-19, was formed at the end of 2019, and spread quickly from person-to-person around the globe. By the 23rd of March 2020, Great Britain had been launched into a national lockdown. This had profound negative effects on the public transport (PT) industry. Many people lost trust in PT systems as the virus spread through being in close contact with others and consequently, many nations saw a dramatic decrease in the number of trips made by PT.This study provides an operator’s perspective of the challenges the pandemic has brought to public transport systems and the interventions that have been used to mitigate these challenges. Twelve semi-structured online interviews were conducted with individuals who worked within the PT industry between July and August 2022. Thematic analysis showed that underinvestment and underfunding were identified as major issues both prior to and since the pandemic for smaller urban areas, however, this was not as problematic within larger urban areas. Bus driver shortages have also had important implications on overall regularity and reliability of PT systems both prior to and during COVID-19.Additional funding has been identified as the best solution by interviewees to solve both their short- and long-term problems within their respective PT sector. Both national and local governments should therefore consider increasing the amount of funding provision provided to PT operators. Similar or comparative studies should be conducted in the future to determine the long-term resilience of PT systems against unplanned disruptions across countries.