COVID-19 and public transport: insights from Belgium (Brussels), Estonia (Tallinn), Germany (Berlin, Dresden, Munich), and Sweden (Stockholm)

As we are submitting this report in December 2020, COVID-19 has had a complex and multifaceted effect on public transport (PT) and its use. The emergence of the virus altered both who used PT and how these users experienced their journeys. This study complicates the fear-focused narrative that often framed PT during the COVID-19 crisis. It highlights diverse experiences of PT, which yet are often socially unequal. This report details the design and outcome of a multi-sited study investigating PT during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study began in March 2020 as part of PUTSPACE, an international research project supported by the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA). It consisted of an online survey (n=1095) and series of semi-structured follow-up interviews (n=49). The survey and interviews solicited information about PT users’ mobility behaviour after the outbreak of COVID-19 as well as their experiences on and perceptions of PT during the initial months of the pandemic. Responses came from four geographical regions; Estonia (Tallinn), Sweden (Stockholm), Belgium (Brussels) and Germany (Berlin, Dresden, Munich). It is significant that most of our insights produced in the survey and interviews echoed similar observations across the studied regions.