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The COVID-19 crisis came out of nowhere, turning our lives upside down.
For the luckiest among us - people not directly affected by the virus - lockdown and remote working are the most visible consequences. But we may wonder if this episode could affect how we go about our future lives in much deeper, long-term ways.
This is what we’re going to look at in terms of mobility.
Before the crisis, one major everyday concern was the relentless increase in road traffic, which was having a huge impact on our mobility. As underlined by the Luxmobil 2017 study, this trend – a priority for ACL - is particularly marked when it comes to commuting. That is why ”Mobility Management Training” was launched by ACL in collaboration with the UNI in 2018, encouraging companies to think about various options for solving the problem. Suggestions included greater use of public transport, car sharing, soft mobility, remote working and offices relocated close to borders for border workers. But COVID-19 then dropped into the equation, bringing new variables and literally changing the conditions… What will the consequences be?
Remote working really popular
We’ve all seen how remote working has been the top alternative solution to coping with the restrictions imposed by lockdown whilst continuing to work. It might not apply to occupations demanding physical presence in the work place, but the evolution of communication technology in recent years now means that remote working can be deployed effectively on a large scale for most types of activity. Coming in the highly specific context of the current health crisis, this realisation means that we can expect to change our way of working in future, addressing environmental considerations at one and the same time (reduction of CO2 emissions). Remote working helps us to reduce urban pollution and counteract climate warming due to road transport. Like the mobility experts say, the best kind of journey is the one that never happens!
A blow to public transport and car sharing
Unlike remote working, collective transport is of course suffering from the fact that we have to observe social distancing of 2 metres in our country. Imposed in Luxembourg by the Ministry of Internal Security, the rule is hard to follow on public transport and totally impossible in private vehicles. This means that car sharing will lose the already scant allure it had with commuters and, in an ironic twist of fate, public transport has been hit by the COVID-19 crisis just when the government made it free!
The car’s the star
One direct consequence of the drop in the use of collective transport is - wait for it - renewed interest in using private cars, which, according to the specialists, should lead to increased sales in the months and years to come, especially on the second hand market. This is due to the need to have your own transport in the hostile economic environment arising from the COVID-19 crisis. When you think that the car, seen as the source of all evil (pollution, climate warming, congestion, etc.) such a short time ago, is now the safest way of getting around during the health crisis, it really is adding insult to injury!
Interest in soft mobility revived
Soft mobility i.e. two-wheel transport with or without an engine, wins in this situation because you can move around independently in an economical and efficient way whilst also observing compulsory social distancing. It has to be said that this mode of transport benefitted from the lockdown period, when cycling was allowed for leisure and exercise purposes, also helped by the very kind weather. So, it will be interesting to see if two-wheeled transport holds on to all the love it had during that time, becoming popular with more and more people post-lockdown.
To conclude, it’s hard to predict whether the crisis we’re going through will be a good thing for mobility, or work against it instead. When you think about it, isn’t it likely that the probable increase in remote working resulting from the COVID-19 experience will be offset by the increased number of private vehicles used by commuters who used public transport or shared cars before? Unless soft mobility becomes more popular than private cars? Weightings for the variables in the mobility equation might have changed, but it’s not clear whether solving it will deliver a better result unless you do your bit to help!