Urban Transportation Challenges in the Post COVID World

Abstract

Public transportation systems got severely affected due to several lockdowns and continuous travel restrictions during COVID-19. Pandemic created apprehensions and doubts regarding use of public transport and thus reliance on private modes increased exponentially to meet the mobility needs. In the present paper, efforts have been made to understand and assess the urban transportation challenges prevailing in India due to COVID pandemic and if there had been any suitable policy interventions in bringing back confidence of the users and the operators in public transport systems. The countries of the world too faced similar transportation issues and challenges. Secondary data is used and analysed to highlight the issues, problems, and challenges in the public transport in the post-covid situation across India. A comprehensive overview of the policy level interventions is made, to understand how the challenges have been mitigated and what other policy measures are required to make public transport systems resilient. The decisions, roles of leadership and management at national, state and city level have been appraised. Finally, the suitable policy reforms are suggested to make urban transportation system and its associated infrastructure more resilient against such pandemics.