COVID-19 Impact on Transport: A Paper from the Railways’ Systems Research Perspective

Impact on Global Consumer Behavior

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered global consumer behavior, affecting the timing, breadth, and volume of purchases ( 3 ). As such, the interaction between producers and consumers changed significantly, and, in the future context, distribution channels are expected to play a crucial role. Supply chains, in particular, must adapt and be more flexible to cope with the current challenge. In most affected countries, people decided, or were compelled to, leave their homes as little as possible; thus, the COVID-19 outbreak gave a tremendous push to the e-commerce sector, which only in Italy experienced a 97% and 101% growth in the first and second weeks of lockdown, respectively ( 4 ). While it is still unclear how long this trend will last, China, the U.S., France, Germany, and Sweden are experiencing a strong growth in the e-commerce sector (5–8). China is particularly noteworthy as already having high shares of e-commerce before the virus outbreak grew significantly, even in rural areas.

What COVID-19 has shown is that passengers and goods traffic can still suffer serious setbacks, with implication on a global scale. However, looking at the “new normal,” it is clear that the transportation sector will continue playing a fundamental role in tomorrow’s society. Still, it will be necessary to transform and adapt transportation to allow recovery to take place.

Impact on the Transport Sector

An analysis of the effects of the pandemic on the transport sector highlights how certain transport modes suffered a more severe slowdown than others. As a whole, future mobility might need to develop a new paradigm to cope with the effect of the virus whilst ensuring mobility to end-users.

In general, before the virus outbreak, it was estimated that passenger transport would have grown by 42% between 2010 and 2050. Freight transport was expected to grow by 60% during the same period ( 9 ). However, the transport sector has been hit hard by the impact of COVID-19: both passenger transport and freight have suffered severe setbacks from the crisis.

Passenger transport within the EU member states and between the EU and the rest of the world has been partially or entirely closed.

Air transport has been one of the sectors which suffered most. In Europe, passenger air traffic fell by 90% ( 10 ). Several airlines have grounded nearly all their fleet and explored the possibility of deploying passenger aircraft as freighters. Nevertheless, freight forwarding has been limited as it suffers from extremely limited connections. Overall, the crisis has limited the airfreight capacity between China and Europe to 40% of its original capacity ( 11 ).

Road transport faced several problems as well, and its efficiency plummeted. The decision to close crucial border crossings in March 2020 to passenger transport, with the objective of carrying out health controls, resulted in long queues of trucks. The closing of the Brenner pass, for example, generated queues up to 90 km in length on the Italian side of the border. Land transport has been subject to disruptions and slowdowns, as a result of both border controls because of sanitary measures and driver unavailability.

Taking into account passenger transport, the following estimates try to show the importance of air and road transport on an EU-wide scale. In 2016, passenger cars accounted for 82.9% of the inland passenger transport in the EU (including, therefore, all transport modes but air and maritime transport), while motor coaches, buses, and trolleybuses accounted for 9.4%, measured by the number of inland passenger kilometers (pkm) travelled ( 12 ). On the other hand, considering that more than 1 billion passengers travelled by air in 2017, half of the air passenger transport concerned extra-EU-27 flights (50%) while national transport and international intra-EU-27 transport accounted for 16% and 34% of air passenger transport, respectively. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the role of the air transport sector was also expected to increase in the future, with an annual passenger increment of 3.5% each year ( 13 ).

In relation to freight transport, road transport accounts for more than half of the total freight transport activity within the EU, with 75% over the total tonne kilometer (tkm) transported. Road transport is followed by rail with 18% and maritime 6% (14–16).

The pandemic also compromised the maritime cargo transport. Being mainly a concern for the transportation of goods between Europe and China, the crisis had repercussions on production in both regions. In particular, the ocean freight industry has responded to the lack of demand for goods from and to China by reducing the supply of shipping services. European ports are expected to be running at 20%–30% of their full capacity in the coming months, thus reducing the demand for ocean liners with a capacity of ten thousand containers.

In the context of EU-China freight transport, long-distance trans-Eurasian rail lines appeared to be mostly untouched by the negative consequences of the crisis. Contrary to other transport modes, trans-Eurasian rail is, in fact, experiencing a growth period. Before the health crisis, its services were eight times cheaper than air freight while taking a triple amount of time ( 17 ). At the same time, while rail transport was two times more expensive than sea freight, its transit time was half the time needed for ocean freight to reach Europe from China ( 18 ). The crisis has led not only to elevated air shipping prices but also to longer transit times in both air and ocean freight, thus increasing the competitivity of rail transport. As a result of the lack of viable transport modes between the EU and China because of the COVID-19 crisis, trans-Eurasian rail lines became a reliable choice and economical option for companies that need to receive and send goods ( 11 ).

Impact on the Environment

The COVID-19 pandemic also has consequences for the environment: greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) have decreased and air quality has increased. Contingency measures have indeed been associated with improvement in air quality, clean beaches, and environmental noise reduction ( 19 ). At the same time, the pandemic also produced negative secondary aspects, such as the reduction in recycling and the increase in waste.

Optimism about the effects of COVID-19 on the environment is misplaced. As UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, highlighted, “We will not fight climate change with a virus.” The current drop in carbon emissions is expected to coincide purely with the virus outbreak. GHG emissions are forecasted to rise again once the pandemic has finished, paving the way for a rebound effect similar to what followed the 2008 financial crisis. In this instance, the crisis caused a 1% drop in CO₂ production, but emissions increased by 5% once the crisis passed. Therefore, it is expected that—once the virus disappears—those measures which have been put in place for its containment will be dismissed, and with them the incidental benefits for the environment.

Nevertheless, some new habits may have come to stay, even if on a voluntary basis. Companies which were skeptical about the introduction of teleworking will now understand the possibilities of this working mode, resulting in less need for commuting and less space needed to conduct business. As such, companies might be tempted to maintain the teleworking approach and save on rents and utilities. This could have an impact on GHG production, albeit a rather limited one. At the same time, the rise of home delivery and e-commerce will also have implications for the environment, creating more GHG both as a result of a larger fleet of vehicles delivering goods to the end-user and the higher use of packages and waste ( 20 ). At the same time, it is not clear if lower levels of private transportation will meet the increase in e-commerce transport, as e-commerce’s role in GHG production largely depends on the customer behavior after purchasing online orders. Whether customers consume cheaper consumer goods at a higher rate when shopping online, or how consumers would use their time that was previously spent shopping retail, are factors that vary greatly but have high relevance in estimating the impact of e-commerce on the environment.

The pandemic environmental impacts are strictly connected to the drop in mobility levels across Europe. Nižetić revealed how the reduction in air transport mobility directly affected the reduction of CO₂ emissions ( 21 ). The relationship between the transport sector and carbon dioxide emissions has been troublesome, and the pandemic happened at a time in which the European policy toward clean transport failed to achieve a reduction of GHG emissions. Unlike other sectors such as agriculture or industry, GHG emissions from the transportation sector have increased dramatically since 1990 ( 22 ).

To avert the “return to normality” vis-à-vis GHG production once the threat of the virus has been eliminated, it will be necessary to introduce structural changes in transportation, to avoid the mistakes made after the 2008 financial crisis. Any stimulus spending that might follow the COVID-19 outbreak should not boost fossil fuel consumption.

Passenger Transport

As of November 2020, virtually every European government has taken two policies as references to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

On one side, policies have been based on the scientific consensus that social distancing is the only form of prevention against COVID-19 because of the absence of vaccination or effective drug therapies. In the last 10 months, almost every country—not only in Europe but all around the world—has promoted social distancing measures, as they proved to be effective in halting the pandemic.

On the other side, European policies have followed the cases of China, South Korea, and the U.S. and attempted to developing geotracking systems using Bluetooth perimeters and big data, capable of calculating the risk of a specific individual having been in contact with someone carrying the virus. After concerns over privacy issues seem to have settled, such tools might be effective in identifying new outbreaks of the virus and allow quarantine measures for suspected new cases.

The omnipresence of these policies in the European political debate reflects on the transport sector. In particular, in the context of increased need for physical distancing, the European transport sector as a whole had to provide new solutions to meet these unexpected demands. At the same time, sustaining the effectiveness and capability of new technologies to safeguard public health plays a crucial role in determining which transport mode will be safer in the upcoming period. Similarly, the transport sector as a whole had to adapt to severe health controls before the passengers’ boarding. Body temperature controls had been put in place on almost every public transport and became mandatory for travelers before entering the train/coach/airplane. Likewise, entrance restrictions have been introduced, similar to the retail industry, and new guidelines have been implemented to provide deep cleaning and sanitization of each transport mode.

The rail sector might have an advantage over road and air transportation in these aspects. Because of the composition of passengers’ wagons, the adaptation of the layout in relation to passengers’ seats might be fast and efficient. Railways can also provide safe, independent compartments in which a small number of passengers can travel and apply social distance measures. Furthermore, by tracking passengers within the different compartments, rail might be able to provide accurate data to detect which passengers could have been exposed to the virus during their journey. Lastly, rail provides a cost-efficient transport mode in relation to the new requirements on health controls. In this sense, it is possible to implement smooth and fast security controls, safeguarding both passengers and health operators before their access to the train station platforms. As such, the rail transport system can install thermal cameras to measure body temperature of several people at the same time. Furthermore, because of the characteristics of the passengers’ wagons, it is also possible to provide deep cleaning and sanitization of the wagon between each new journey.

Urban Mobility

In the context of urban mobility, since the beginning of the pandemic, end-users had to face a decision in relation to which mode of transport to choose between private transport (i.e., cars, bicycles) or public transportation. On one side, demand pushed forward private mobility as a result of the fear of infection and interaction with other users (23, 24). However, the use of private mobility such as automobiles is not self-evident. The crisis hit automotive manufacturers worldwide hard, which have then been forced to shut down operations on the vast majority of their production plants. After an initial supply shock, the auto industry is now experiencing a global demand shock. Predictions show that automotive sales most likely will decrease by 14%–22% among the markets in China, the U.S., and Europe in 2020 ( 23 ).

While it is still uncertain to which outcome the crisis will push the automotive industry, auto companies may be forced to divert capital to continuing operations, thus “starving R&D funding for advanced technology initiatives” ( 25 ). In particular, while technologies such as autonomous driving or innovative fuels might be put on hold, it is unclear if the automotive sector will continue the push toward electric vehicles (EVs). In this context, on one side automotive companies already asked the European Commission to postpone CO₂ targets related to the production of hybrid vehicles and EVs ( 26 ). On the other side, member countries such as Italy are planning to increase the fiscal bonus to consumers willing to buy an electric car from 6,000€ to 15,000€ ( 27 ). However, the authors argue, both solutions are short-sighted.

Firstly, this is because focusing on vehicle production rather than environmental protection means delaying the effectiveness of environmental measures and lower the competitiveness of innovative solutions such as electric cars. In particular, if the EU were to postpone environmental measures to focus on protracting the production of an obsolete vehicle fleet—which will have to be forcefully shelved in a relatively short period—this would not only undermine the industry competitiveness on the world markets but also undermine the consumers’ belief in the EU.

Secondly, in the context of an economic crisis where families are affected by a lower purchasing power, the introduction of large investments from the member states for an industry which is not able to compete yet with traditional combustion vehicles, because of both the range and availability of charging stations, might have serious consequences. On one side, it might create a dangerous division between segments of the population. The highest end-price of an EV, compared with cars with a combustion engine, is likely to be a constant factor in the immediate aftermath of the crisis. A lower purchasing power from the hardest-hit sections of the population will likely be matched with an uneven distribution of charging stations across the EU. The result might be a situation in which those benefiting from the economic incentives in purchasing EVs would also be those not in need of financial aid and closer to economic strongholds within the region. On the other side, such measures would drain important resources which could be poured into providing safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly public mobility.

Despite the previous considerations on the effects of the policy approaches toward the automotive sector, the fear of health risks and health controls strongly boosted the trend of private mobility in 2020, which coincided with under-usage of public transportation ( 28 ).

In the European context, those cities which might give priority to private mobility with cars could face the possibility of seeing their mobility collapse, as most European pre-COVID-19 cities already suffer from their congested streets. Green private mobility, such as electric bicycles or electric scooters, may play an important role in urban mobility, as the decision of New York in relation to the legalization of e-bikes and scooters shows ( 29 ). However, several cities across Europe still lack adequate legislation on the regulation of EVs such as scooters and bicycles ( 30 ). Furthermore, not only are these mobility solutions still relatively expensive and remain mostly private, but their capacity to replace public mobility in a very short time is still unproved. Policymakers will have to decide whether to continue the current policies on restrictions in relation to polluting vehicles or update the legislation vis-à-vis electric smart mobility.

In the context of public urban mobility, COVID-19-resilient policies might include encouraging the rail sector to provide deep interconnection with micromobility services such as electric scooters and bicycles (lightweight devices operating at speeds typically below 25 km/h), playing a key role in the concept of Mobility as a Service. Furthermore, policies must be in place to avoid the risk of underuse of public transportation. In this context, railway services might continue providing mobility services without the drawbacks of private car usage, if capacity constraints were to be reduced to a minimum. The economics of rail supply must equally be kept in consideration, as those parameters are important for end-users. Performance and train length must be re-evaluated.

When comparing railways with other public transport services, rail presents advantages over road mobility. Because of its station-based infrastructure, in fact, metro services can provide adequate space for carrying out health control operations, if needed. Moreover, rail does have the advantage of being able to increase train capacity by adding cars. It can thus provide more effective social distancing measures than other transport modes while maintaining the same number of passengers as before the pandemic. The trade-off between distancing and density is, therefore, less significant in railways than in other public transport modes and has to become a regular concern in the planning of urban transport.

On the other hand, a reduction in the capacity of trains might lead to an increase in private transport. It is therefore essential to improve the frequency and availability of trains, to avoid a dangerous shift of commuters to cars. In the context of a high shift to private mobility, rail will be able to offer cleaner, safer, and more punctual mobility services than private vehicles could. A sustained increment toward the usage of private cars needs to be avoided especially in the context of cities increasingly facing problems caused by transport and traffic ( 31 ). Especially in the case of metro services, the usage of an infrastructure network not shared with private transport greatly reduces the risk of congestion.

If fears over the spread of COVID-19 result in a sustained trend in which travelers prioritize private cars over public transport, European cities will experience a dangerous shift, which might lead to the collapse of the urban transport system in the major European cities and the need for massive subsidies. This would have several negative consequences, such as a more dangerous environment (both for road users and because of CO₂ production), productivity and economic loss because of increased time in traffic congestion, and worsening of quality of life for the inhabitants.

Suburban Mobility

Similar to what has been highlighted in the urban mobility scenario, end-users might prefer private mobility as a result of the fear of infection and interaction. However, in this scenario, private mobility might also be limited in comparison with the urban mobility environment, by the higher price in the automotive sector, while economic incentives for the purchase of EVs might be less effective among the population living in suburbs or towns within commuting distance than among the population living inside the city center. The lower effectiveness of economic incentives is expected mainly for two reasons. On one side, the low availability of charging stations in the suburban territory might not allow a comfortable shift from traditional vehicles to EVs. On the other side, the current regulations in several EU member states do not provide economic sanctions toward encouraging polluting automobiles out of the main city areas as much as within the city limits. As such, while economic incentives push the population living within city limits toward the choice of purchasing an EV—and at the same time, economic sanctions discourage the consumers in maintaining vehicles with older technologies such as diesel engines—the population living outside of the city limits has only limited incentives and faces infrastructure deficit.

At the same time, in the context of suburban mobility, the choices of private mobility, such as electric bicycles or scooters, are extremely limited because of the nature of commuting distances.

In this context, public transportation in general, and rail services in particular, might play a major role in ensuring passenger mobility. Therefore, similar to the urban scenario, the re-evaluation according to the new context of important parameters such as frequencies, performance, and train length might ensure high efficiency for the sector.

Leisure and Work-Related Long-Distance Travels

The words of the EU Commission President, Von der Leyen, which recommended “waiting before making plans” on holiday reservations are indicative of the state of the touristic sector in Europe. Long-distance travel is expected to be taboo until 2021 at least, but the development of the situation might postpone the date further on. The long-term effects of the COVID-19 crisis on tourism are still unclear, as it heavily depends on the economic measures the member states and the European Council will implement to safeguard this business from the economic crisis. So far, the best-case scenario is characterized by a severe reduction of long-distance travel for leisure and short-term tourism. This decline might have impacts on every transport mode. International journeys are expected not to recover until the emergency has ceased, while the impacts on long national journeys might be less drastic.

The air transport sector is likely to be the most heavily affected transport sector, as, not only is it extremely demanding and expensive for air companies to provide effective measures to ensure social distance and health controls, but it will also be challenging to maintain crew and operators’ safety and provide deep cleaning and sanitization to the aircraft. The economic model of airlines must adapt to the new health requirements. The limited economic resilience of the air transport sector will likely be the main factor in the decrease of share for the future of the sector ( 32 ). The number of passengers allowed on board is expected to be much lower than the pre-crisis level, to facilitate social distancing measures. As such, the aggressive yield management at the base of airlines business operation will likely be reduced, raising the price of airplane tickets consistently.

While railway services might share the same issue of reduced capacity as airlines for a short period, their business model presents advantages as it allows an easier adaptation to the new circumstances than the business model which airlines employ. At the same time, orders for new aircraft are expected to plummet. Therefore, together with the production of airplanes, the R&D of new models is likely to drop steadily. As both Boeing and Airbus—the two main aircraft manufacturers in the world—will probably leave the crisis in need of state aids, it will be necessary for the two companies to reduce employment and restructure their supply chains ( 33 ). The crisis will heavily influence the air transport sector for years to come, with unclear effects on airline companies and aircraft manufacturers alike.

In the context of long-distance journeys, railways might provide the best service level amongst public transport, taking into consideration the new health standards and regulations. As such, rail operators might be able to apply social distance measures, contribute to data collection to help detect and avoid eventual new outbreaks, and allow smooth, fast, and secure health controls before the departure in respect of both passengers’ and operators’ health.

However, the authors argue, the role of railways in ensuring long-distance mobility might involve new services such as night trains specifically modified to ensure the correct adherence to the new health regulations. The design and adoption of “COVID-19-intelligent” sleeping cars in individual and family compartments might provide a smooth journey while complying with health protection regulations. Furthermore, this measure could be implemented with a limited cost, as the introduction of such a wagon would rely on relatively inexpensive modifications or a quick rebuilding of already-existing wagons. By introducing long-distance night services, it will be possible for families and groups to travel seamlessly without renouncing long-distance journeys, and remain in accordance with health regulations. Such an arrangement is, on the other hand, extremely unlikely in air transport, because of the higher costs of adaptation of the aircraft, which will greatly affect the ticket price for the end-user. Rail might be able to compete with air transport on long distances as a result of several factors: prices for rail services might be lower than the price airlines might charge, CO₂ emissions will be noticeably lower than the ones resulting from air transport, and, at the same time, compliance with health controls will be higher than the aircraft can assure. Similarly, night trains will eradicate the need for an overnight stay in certain instances, thus diminishing the need for social contact. To enhance the effectiveness of these measures, it is necessary to identify those routes where rail competitiveness over air traffic can be highest. This necessary step might allow an effective substitution of air transportation by long-distance trains.

Higher Controlling of Individual Mobility Patterns

As highlighted in each scenario involving passengers, transport modes might have to work together with new technologies to contain the spread of the virus. Amongst them, there could be the support of geotracking systems capable of calculating the risk of a specific individual having been in contact with someone carrying the virus. Other technologies will require thermal cameras to measure health parameters, such as body temperature, before the passenger enters the station, always respecting privacy. Computer vision technology could be used to detect when transit workers or passengers breach social distancing norms at stations and in vehicles. The transport sector could also employ air filters and fans to ensure air circulation flows vertically from ceiling to floor throughout the compartment rather than horizontally from one passenger to the others, thus minimizing the possibility of spreading the virus within the transport carrier. Transportation might be required to support these systems. The rail sector might have an advantage over other public transport modes, and especially airlines, in implementing such measures.

Firstly, rail might accommodate technical equipment with limited constraint because of the size or energy consumption of the vehicle, while these solutions would be harder to implement in the cases of coaches or airplanes.

Secondly, rail might employ an external infrastructure such as a train or metro station, which is more sophisticated than the one supporting coaches, but in need of less human interaction for its proper functioning than airports. The advantage of this infrastructure lies in the possibility of its employment for carrying out security measures to give access to the rail services to those passengers who do not present symptoms of COVID-19. At the same time, these measures can be carried out with complete respect of the healthcare professionals’ wellbeing and the passengers’ privacy.

Thirdly, dedicated, innovative tools for the prevention, recovery, and containment processes might be developed to control the virus during mobility activities. In this context, passengers and rail staff can be individually protected by dedicated supports, while the rail car or train cabin can be equipped by automatic disinfection systems. Novel research fields for the rail transport sector might involve safety barrier development, intelligent personal protective equipment (like masks, full wetsuit, helmet, gloves), integrating dedicated sensors and actuators to support the control of the spread of the virus, and intelligent systems for the automatic decontamination of seats, hand supports, grab bars, or rail cars.

However, the existence of emergency health measures would also play an important part in shifting the perception of passengers vis-à-vis railway and push them instead toward the choice of personal mobility instead.

If necessary, under extreme circumstances, the rail sector is able to provide health measures. However, the authors argue that railway transport services need to provide a seamless continuous experience without the physical and technological barriers that solutions such as emergency health measures would promote. Long-distance travel could be, for a very short time, compatible with constraints and invasive health controls. However, this is not true, especially in the context of urban and suburban mobility, where ineffective and intrusive measures might only reduce the advantages of rail, de facto promoting individual mobility. Strong incentives will be necessary to limit the overestimation of COVID-19 in comparison with other risks, and influence passengers’ psychology, restoring their general acceptance of risk to the pre-crisis level. Historically, the European urban mobility system managed to limit the private use of cars by providing services capable of connecting the end-users with their multiple destinations without having to use a car. If barriers or limitations such as temperature screenings and overcrowded wagons will decrease the public transport efficiency, most users will rather elect to drive a car. As urban transit and intercity rail services alike must reduce the probability of virus transmission to be able to complete with private mobility, key parameters such as train length, frequencies, and performance must be seriously re-evaluated.

However, while this paper firmly advises against the unnecessary deployment of invasive systems to over-protect passengers’ health in the entire public transport sector, it also underlines how rail has an advantage over other public transport modes, and especially airlines, if such systems are implemented.

Freight and Logistics

In March 2020, 75% of companies globally reported interruptions in their supply chain because of transport restrictions, and 46% of companies of international logistics have experienced significant delays in shipment from Chinese ports. Furthermore, significant delays have been experienced in the shipments to China for 86% of the companies, 74% in Europe, and 44% in North America ( 34 ). The first disruption concerned the Chinese lockdown, but since then the problem has moved to Europe. The crisis is causing effects on the entire logistics chain of shipments with heavy disruption of entire supply chains. The picture is expected to be more fragile in light of the upcoming global recession, which will have consequences for advanced and emerging economies alike. As a result, global value chains are expected to be restructured, following a trend of regionalization of supplies. As such, the World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that in 2020 world trade will decrease by up to 32%, thus producing profound effects on international logistics companies.

As economic activities will be likely to operate under difficult conditions in the near future, higher prices in production are expected. As the entire production chain will suffer from either lower workforce or higher prices compared with the pre-crisis level, production is still likely to remain lower and more expensive. Higher prices will also be a result of the challenges the transport sector will encounter. Road transport, in particular, may suffer the consequences of controls at the borders, forced quarantine for drivers, and higher insurance prices. Traffic jams of up to 60 km length on the German-Polish border and 90 km on the Brenner pass illustrate the vulnerability of road transport in times of tightened border controls in the Schengen area.

Sea transport is also likely to encounter challenges, such as personnel restrictions or the limited number of containers to be transported. This last aspect, in particular, plays a key role in sea transport competitiveness, as the size of vessels must be adapted to the transport demand to be competitive. This may force some shippers to operate with smaller vessels such as Panama and Post-Panamax, and berth new high-capacity New Panamax and ultra large container vessels. This transport mode is also likely to suffer consequences from higher insurance prices. Prolonged overcapacity at a time of limited demand may be a source of vulnerability for individual logistics and container transport companies. At the same time, as the 2016 bankruptcy of Hanjin showed, these factors can be a liability for the entire maritime transport system. However, sea transport might take advantage of the crisis to introduce intelligent systems such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, automatic handling, and navigation ( 34 ).

Rail freight will also face significant challenges, particularly related to the slowdown in industrial output. Measures might have to be put in place to prevent the disappearance of operators and capacity, possibly through state support in the short term. The freight sector proved to be resilient to the crisis, and thus operators decided to shift capacity from seaport traffic to intra-European transport ( 35 ). At the same time, the European Commission decided to provide “green lanes” at border crossings to expedite the transportation of goods within a short timeframe, albeit further efforts are required in addressing train drivers as strategic workforce thus allowing smooth border crossing operations (35, 36). Rail freight proved to be able to play a significant role also in sectors where its presence is not yet consolidated: rail has rapidly adapted to transport types of goods which have not typically been part of their core business. As an example, the Scandinavian--Mediterranean Rail Corridor has been essential in allowing railways to become a fast delivery mode of break bulk products. Rail has been able to transport essential food, such as pasta from Italy to Germany, on short notice, ensuring that supply chains in Europe were up and running. In this instance, rail gave the manufacturer the reassurance that its products could be delivered. Rail also provided the retailer with the ability to respond flexibly to supply bottlenecks and allowed consumers to maintain their shopping habits.

In this context, European logistics must focus on the “recovery” phase, with priorities such as boosting internal consumption, supporting export, and new investments. Investments in infrastructure are considered as a countercyclical tool in a time when the economic slowdown restrains consumption, investments, and trade. Infrastructure development is a pivotal component of future development, as it increases potential output, productivity, and competitiveness. Investments might have to be implemented focusing on transformation and technological modernization in light of sustainability needs and international competitiveness. Infrastructure plays a fundamental role in this scenario. Both in the member states and at the EU level, it is necessary to implement a fast and functional regulatory framework able to provide an immediate start for projects. Furthermore, it is of paramount importance to push forward digital and physical infrastructures to support the mobility of citizens and goods, both at national and European level, with a focus on efficiency and respect for the environment.

As the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) has yet to be completed, it is classified as a precious set of investments ready for implementation. The crisis highlighted the need for enhancing the audacity of the project and pushing forward aspects related to environmental respect and intelligent systems. It is necessary to seek a modern, efficient, and sustainable infrastructure system, as it is an essential factor for improving European competitiveness, efficiency, and quality of life ( 37 ). Likewise, every step toward a coherent and interoperable TEN-T network improves the resilience of Europe not only against pandemics but also against every other regional, national, or global crisis.

Guidelines for a Future Approach/Avenues for Future Analysis

As already seen, the transport sector has suffered the adoption of unprecedented measures since the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis in Europe. Travel and manufacturing have been restricted significantly to avoid the spread of the virus. Diminished production and disrupted cross-border supply chains heavily influenced rail operators. However, the Union-wide lockdown proved the critical role that transport and logistics sectors continue to play in delivering essential products, and, in particular, the resilience and competitiveness of the freight sector.

When re-thinking the near future of rail, it is necessary not only to adapt the European railway sector to the new challenges, but it is rather indispensable to reconsider the role that railway can play in the continent’s mobility. As will now be seen, it becomes recommendable for the European rail sector to undergo the following steps to better continue providing services throughout future crises:

Resilience

The European rail industry might need in the immediate term to address cash management challenges; small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) require support from EU institutions to cope with the shutdowns and the economic effects which are expected after the crisis. This requires the development of new abilities for rail transport systems such as plasticity and learning to accordingly adapt their mobility missions as quickly as possible. Measures might be introduced to make the European rail industry more robust against pandemics and similar threats. In the long term, a higher grade of automation in operations might provide a different, but less vulnerable, system, as will measures of predictive maintenance concerning resilient infrastructure. Valuable impacts in this sense might be provided by the introduction of electronic ticketing systems able to address cash management challenges and information campaigns.

At the same time, the current period of reduced timetables might be exploited as a chance to focus on maintenance and renewal of the current fleet, as it is a major challenge on congested networks.

Return

The EU institutions might need to create a detailed plan to return the business to scale quickly, as the virus evolves, and knock-on effects become clearer. Indicators or indexes might be developed to control the evolution of the instability recovery, to determine the short-term, medium-term, and long-term prevention, recovery, and containment actions, to assess their impacts, and to redefine them if necessary.

Reimagination

Both the EU institutions and the rail industry might have to re-imagine the “new normal,” to adapt the rail sector to the aftermath of the pandemic, provide service, and maintain competitiveness. Considering a future perspective, it might be necessary to provide further funding for research and development activities in the context of disaster management. Universities, research institutes, and companies might be able to expand their work and produce scientific innovation in a scenario, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, never imagined before.

It might also be necessary to focus on the policy measures that ought to be considered both during the current crisis and during the transition to the “new normal.” In this sense, it might be necessary to align policies that promote economic growth and transport policies, and to promote economic recovery, while also pushing for changes in behavior, such as the promotion of walking and cycling.

Reform

The European Commission New Industrial Strategy for Europe and the Green Deal date back to before the COVID-19 crisis. A reform of the mobility policies in light of the pandemic, and its consequences for the public transport sector and for the environment, might be necessary to provide the adoption of best practices in the new context of financial instability and green recovery.

Research

The challenges faced by the European rail system during and after the pandemic show the need for research in the context of railway transport. With the aim of providing innovative solutions in rail technologies, improving the competitivity of European research, aligning needs of the rail industry and methods of the academia, and forming the new generation of researchers, further research might address the following areas.

Research efforts are necessary on the digitalization and automation of vital processes dependent on manual operations (i.e., use of Internet of Things [IoT] and robotics for track and rolling stock monitoring and maintenance, automatic rail operations [ATO] and automated driving, and integration of AI and Big Data). In strict connection with the need for digitalization and automation, this crisis highlights the need for research on developing pandemic- or disaster-related training schemes for the rail workforce.

At the same time, research must cover the necessity of detailed multi-dimensional analysis of urban mobility patterns after the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, there is a need for research in relation to operational supply side and demand side (user perceptions) related to the COVID-19. It will be necessary to address the way in which this crisis will affect private rail firms running services.

Especially relevant for rail freight is the need for additional research efforts to produce studies on reducing operational costs via new transport policies and legal actions.

Further research efforts are also necessary to learn valuable lessons from errors in the COVID-19 pandemic management. Changes in actions require immediate answers, and interdisciplinary research actions can provide guidelines for railway transport. Logistic, contribution to dismiss the propagation, and disinfection are some of the lines of interdisciplinary cooperation between research centers and universities based on the tools available over the concept of digitization; but also design and manufacturing resources such as 3D printing and generative design that provide experimentally based solutions compatible with railway technology schemes.

Research can also focus on the traceability of logistics using learning and predictive models capable of offering prognosis on sources of propagation in transport, together with the optimization of the resources of the railway community. Decision-making in access to the railway services, the distribution of the users in trains and stations, the optimization of work conditions, and operation management are the main areas of requests for research, but also in making the resources of the railway community available to the public health demands.

Likewise, the pandemic exposes the urgency in investing in interdisciplinary research on the development and use of self-cleaning materials on trains (such as photocatalytic coatings used by Japan on train and station interiors, or recent applications on e-scooters). Research into materials that minimize the capacity for viral infection on surfaces that can be touched by transport users (doors, seats, ticketing machines, etc.), the purification of air through suitable air-conditioning methods and air filter design in closed indoor areas, and vehicle sanitation and disinfection processes compatible with railway regulations and public health criteria are other lines of action toward preventing and stopping the spread of disease.