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Insight Into the Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Transportation Sector: an Economic and Community-Based Perspective

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Insight Into the Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Transportation Sector: an Economic and Community-Based Perspective sustainability Perspective Insight into the Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Transportation Sector: An Economic and Community-Based Perspective Hafiz Suliman Munawar 1, Sara Imran Khan 2, Zakria Qadir 3,* , Abbas Z. Kouzani 4 and M A Parvez Mahmud 4 1 School of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; [email protected] 2 Faculty of Chemical Energy, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; [email protected] 3 School of Computing Engineering and Mathematics, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia 4 School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia; [email protected] (A.Z.K.); [email protected] (M.A.P.M.) * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a major virus outbreak of the 21st century. The Australian government and local authorities introduced some drastic strategies and policies to control the outspread of this virus. The policies related to lockdown, quarantine, social distancing, shut down of educational institute, work from home, and international and interstate travel bans significantly affect the lifestyle of citizens and, thus, influence their activity patterns. The transport system is, thus, severely affected due to the COVID-19 related restrictions. This paper analyses how the transport system is impacted because of the policies adopted by the Australian government for Citation: Munawar, H.S.; Khan, S.I.; the containment of the COVID-19. Three main components of the transport sector are studied. These Qadir, Z.; Kouzani, A.Z.; Mahmud, are air travel, public transport, and freight transport. Various official sources of data such as the M.A.P. Insight into the Impact of official website of the Australian government, Google mobility trends, Apple Mobility trends, and COVID-19 on Australian Transportation Sector: An Economic Moovit were consulted along with recently published research articles on COVID-19 and its impacts. and Community-Based Perspective. The secondary sources of data include databases, web articles, and interviews that were conducted Sustainability 2021, 13, 1276. https:// with the stakeholders of transport sectors in Australia to analyse the relationship between COVID-19 doi.org/10.3390/su13031276 prevention measures and the transport system. The results of this study showed reduced demand for transport with the adoption of COVID-19 prevention measures. Declines in revenues in the air, Academic Editor: Xinqiang Chen freight, and public transport sectors of the transport industry are also reported. The survey shows Received: 4 January 2021 that transport sector in Australia is facing a serious financial downfall as the use of public transport Accepted: 21 January 2021 has dropped by 80%, a 31.5% drop in revenues earned by International airlines in Australia has Published: 26 January 2021 been predicted, and a 9.5% reduction in the freight transport by water is expected. The recovery of the transport sector to the pre-pandemic state is only possible with the relaxation of COVID-19 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral containment policies and financial support by the government. with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- Keywords: COVID 19; Australia; lockdown; quarantine; work from home; public transport; travel iations. 1. Introduction Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syn- This article is an open access article drome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus was first discovered in December 2019 in distributed under the terms and China that later spread to 210 countries as the world entered 2020 [1]. The World Health conditions of the Creative Commons Organization (WHO) declared it a pandemic on 11 March 2020. This disease is charac- Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// terized by flu and cold-like symptoms. The symptoms may range from mild sneezing to creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ severe sickness leading to death. The symptoms may also include cough, fever, shortness 4.0/). of breath, and possible pneumonia [2]. The symptoms may be visible for two to fourteen Sustainability 2021, 13, 1276. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031276 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2021, 13, 1276 2 of 24 days after the contact. The virus spreads from one person to another within one to two meters distance of each other through coughing or sneezing generally. The transfer can be direct through contact with the infected person or indirect by touching the infected surfaces [2]. The proliferation of the disease is occurring at a rapid rate globally as reported by the number of cases [3]. Due to its highly infectious nature, drastic measures to restrict and limit the outdoor activities of people have been adopted all over the world. Such policies have taken a serious toll on the transportation and mobility patterns of people, as most of the people are now confined to their homes. Many countries like America, Australia, Canada, Spain, Italy, and Norway are observing bans on air travel [4]. This has seriously affected the transport system all over the world. The impact of COVID-19 related rules depends on the mode of transportation. In Budapest, the most prominent reduction in the number of trips has been observed in public transport while cycling faced the least decline [5]. The use of public transport by citizens faced the highest decline in the Netherlands, where the number of trips was reduced by more than 90%. In this country, 88% of people prefer using their transport means rather than using a public or shared mode of transportation [6]. Aloi et al. [7] reported that the mobility of citizens in Spain has been reduced by 76% and public transport observed a 93% reduction in the number of passengers [7]. In the UK, travel restrictions resulted in a 95% decrease in underground travel (Ramos Alfaro, 2020). Canadian Civil Aviation activities and military aviation activities reduced by dropped by 71 and 27%, respectively. At the end of June 2020, Brussels, Singapore, Stockholm, Lyon, Paris, and Moscow were found to have a mobility index higher than 50%. Hong Kong had the highest mobility index of 76% while American cities were found to have a mobility index lower than 20% [8]. Global commercial flight activity during mid-April 2020 was almost 75% below 2019 [9]. Huang et al. [10] investigate the impact of a pandemic on transportation-related behaviours. Travel restrictions were one of the major effective measures taken in Mainland China to control the COVID-19 outbreak. Human mobility data were collected from Baidu Maps and detailed transportation-related behaviours were investigated based on the mode of transportation, type of places visited, preference on “origin-destination” distance, etc. It was observed that during January to April 2020 a dramatic change was observed in the factors in comparison to the same time last year. For example, the origin- destination distance was greater than 300 km in February 2020 as compared to February 2018–2019. Moreover, people preferred zero-touch transportation to reach their destination. Sun et al. [10] conducted an empirical analysis on the air transportation systems using multi-granularity network analysis including international, domestic, and worldwide airport networks from January to May 2020. It was found that flight restrictions were imposed on long-distance international flights, while the impact of pandemic was lower on domestic flights. Based on complex network metrics it was found that each airport lost 50% of its connections on average. Furthermore, Monmousseau et al. [11] investigated the travel restriction implemented in the US air transportation system from a passenger perspective. Four passenger-centric metrics were built using Twitter data, which were available in real-time. From the passengers’ perspective metrics indicated that each airline responded to the pandemic related travel restrictions differently and could be useful for the decision-making process. In Australia, COVID-19 was confirmed in January 2020. From the start of the pandemic till 23 December 2020, the total number of confirmed cases of the infection reached 28,237. Out of these patients, 25,717 have recovered while 908 died [12]. The graph in Figure1 shows the number of new COVID-19 cases reported each day starting from March 2020. This graph shows that on 10 March 2020, 21 new COVID-19 cases were reported. Sharp spikes in the number of new COVID-19 cases were observed in the months of March and July. The highest number of cases was reported on 30 July when this number reached to 721. Sustainability 2021, 13, xSustainability FOR PEER 2021REVIEW, 13, 1276 3 of 27 3 of 24 Figure 1. Several COVID-19Figure cases 1. Several in different COVID-19 states. cases in different states. After August 2020, this number again declined and reached 25 new cases on 16 After August 2020, this number again declined and reached 25 new cases on 16 No- November 2020. To limit the spread of the virus in Australia, the governments of differ- vember 2020. Toent limit states the have spread taken of severalthe viru drastics in Australia, measures, the such governments as social distancing, of different ban on social states have takengatherings, several drastic lockdown, measures, and quarantine such as policies.social distancing, People do theirban jobson social while gath- working from erings, lockdown,home. and quarantine Online shopping policies. has becomePeople do the their new jobs preferred while way working of shopping from home. as the national Online shoppingaverage has become of online the shopping new preferred transactions way has of shopping been raised as by the 41% national for the year average 2020 [13]. The of online shoppingeducational transactions institutes has been like schools,raised by colleges, 41% for and the universities year 2020 are[13].
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