I was asked for my thoughts about the impact of the COVID19 crisis on mobility as a service and future transport by Sandra Witzel of Skedgo. Here’s what I said:

I think that the widespread social distancing and lockdown measures have two main impacts.
The first is pretty obvious; reduced demand. We can see the impact of working from home and people on furlough on transport data trackers such as Citymapper’s index. Demand for online ordering and delivery has rocketed and we’re seeing the replacement of shopping trips by delivery on a grand scale.
The second is that as the roads empty, there is more room for cycling and walking (and indeed to maintain social distancing we need wider pavements). Bike share and e-bikes have stepped up to help NHS and other key workers make their essential journeys. Other shared transport providers - Liftshare, HiyaCar, Zipcar are all stepping in. Even tech enabled taxi services are creating fare plans for essential workers.
Whilst the immediate impacts are very much to reduce public transport (which is at the core of MaaS) this may not be a long term impact.
There will be direct and indirect consequences of the crisis - at the same time as we are released to travel, the economic impact may well be being felt. People - many of whom have barely used their cars for months - may well look to shed the costs of car ownership as they feel the pinch. It’s hard to predict at present but this may well play out as increasing demand for forms of MaaS, smart transport and new mobility.
Disruption is the mother of transport behaviour change. Not only must we not assume that we will pick up where we left off, but we must also actively work to shape the new behaviours which will form in future.

Having read the full article, there are many people trying to ensure the future is shaped so that it doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the past.

Here in Calderdale I’ve set up a volunteer e-cargobike delivery service. More about this later.