Public transportationAfter COVID-19, Public Transport in Intensive Care

Published 13 July 2020

Many certainties fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic. Director of forecasting for the French urban transport operator Keolis, Eric Chareyron is no exception to this reality. “The problem with public transport is that there is “public” or “communal” in the name, he says. The term “communal,” in a period when we are being urged to limit what we do in a communal manner, “inevitably, that handicaps us.” Eric Béziat writes in Le Monde [in French] that thought is being given in the public transportation sector to looking for a new, less anxiety-provoking name. This line of thinking is an indication to what extent the sector was hit by the crisis, and questions are being raised about its very foundations. The train, the metro, the bus, the tram are all enclosed and collective spaces, and as such are the designated victims of health vigilance.