Our lives will never be the same after this pandemic. The term ‘after’ is actually quite vague because various estimates figure that the Covid 19 pandemic is expected to have multiple outbreaks over the next 1 to years. A big part of our lives and particularly our daily routines is travel. This refers mainly to our regular commutes between our homes, workplaces, schools, shops, and other typical places that transportation engineers and planners like to term as origins and destinations. Transport will definitely be impacted by the pandemic as we seek to have physical distance between people. Public transport will be hard hit as, for one, as the number of passengers will have to be limited per vehicle. What were crowded buses with 60+ passengers (including those standing) will likely have only 20 to 30 passengers depending on the layout. Jeepneys that used to seat 20-24 passengers (excluding sabit or hangers as these are prohibited in the first place) may only accommodate 8 to 10 passengers, again depending on the layout. Tricycles will have to carry only one passenger in the sidecar with no-one allowed to sit behind the driver. Here’s an article and much stats on how the pandemic is disrupting transit elsewhere but particularly in US cities:

• How coronavirus is disrupting public transit, https://transitapp.com/coronavirus [Last accessed: 3/30/2020]

Judging from what was practically the elimination of traffic congestion along Metro Manila and other cities’ roads, it is clear that we cannot go back to transportation where cars dominate road space. And so public transport will have to carry that additional burden of private car users being required to use public transport modes instead. While its possible to do the number crunching to determine bus, jeepney, van and train frequencies, it is uncertain if there are enough manpower to run these vehicles under a protocol to ensure that passengers (and drivers and conductors) will not be infected or spread Covid-19.

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