Mobility Behaviour in View of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic—Public Transport Users in Gdansk Case Study

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, like an earthquake, shocked our civilization and is still having a devastating effect on our lives. Guaranteeing an appropriate level of safety in the conditions of an epidemic is a highly problematic issue due to the subjectivism of social individuals, their diverse attitudes, and past life experiences. Taking into account the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines regarding the pandemic, authorities all around the world have reacted by issuing the necessary sets of advice and legal acts. This resulted in immediate and severe implications on mobility styles. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on mobility behaviours with special regard to public transport users, in terms of their willingness to travel and their safety criteria perceptions. The city of Gdańsk, in Poland, located on the Baltic Sea, has been taken as an example. The hypothesis was as follows: the epidemic phenomenon may substantially affect mobility behaviours in terms of subjective levels of safety and the mental comfort of public transport users, resulting in avoiding this form of transport. In accordance with the survey results, carried out among the users, 90% of respondents resigned or limited their usage. Almost 75% of them plan to return to using public transport when the epidemic situation has stabilized. The others, unfortunately, have completely lost hope that public transport will ever be safe. These results indicate decisively that the future of public transport in cities, and the willingness of passengers to use it once the epidemic is over, depends majorly on the perceived comfort and safety during the epidemic. This means that transport policies should be focused on enhancing these perceptions and making sure that the image of public transport is not in further decline; otherwise, it could mean an almost impossible effort to encourage passengers to return to using sustainable modes of transport in the future.

Making the COVID-19 crisis a real opportunity for environmental sustainability

“…A ten-country survey by Barbieri et al ( 2021 ) found that, while mobility was reduced across all transport modes, the decline was most pronounced for public transport and least pronounced for cars. Similarly, several other studies show that the share of car usage in the modal split has increased in several countries (Bucsky 2020 ; Eisenmann et al 2021 ; Molloy et al 2021 ; Przybylowski et al 2021 ).…”

Insight into the Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Transportation Sector: An Economic and Community-Based Perspective

“…Hence, it is essential to look at four key aspects: earlier travel patterns, lockdowns, transition stage, and adopting the new normal. Earlier studies have observed that such disruptions can catalyse the behavioural shifts towards more sustainable behaviour; however, curbing a return to pre-pandemic behaviours will require governments to make strict and responsible decisions [51].…”

What Causes Changes in Passenger Behavior in South-East Europe during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

“…As in many studies [5,6,17,18], the choice of transport mode and acceptable levels of vehicle occupancy are also influenced by the country of origin. Although the respondents who participated in this research belong to countries that are geographically close to each other, in each country different demographic factors affect this aspect differently.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the public passenger transport system [10], as it was identified as a high-risk environment for the spread of the virus [11][12][13][14]. Compared to private vehicles and other modes of transport [15][16][17], public transport was the most strongly affected [5,6,17,18], since conducting social distancing and providing the necessary materials for safe travel required a great deal of material and organizational resources [18].…”