As we continue to move forward toward a post COVID-19 world, the residual impacts will be felt for a long time to come. ITS-NY convened on June 23, 2021 to discuss important topics such as the global impacts of ridership on transit and rail, travel behavior, reopening strategies for the New York City Transit Authority, transit service re-allocation strategies, transit policy and funding, federal transit programs, recent Congressional actions, and more.

C2SMART researches Jingqin Gao and Ding Yang delivered a presentation titled, “Mobility in Post-Pandemic Economic Reopening under Social Distancing Guidelines: Congestion, Emissions, and Contact Exposure in Public Transit” which explored the COVID-19 Mobility Board. The presentation walked listeners through its research questions:

1. Under transit operating guidelines to incorporate social distancing, how would the combined effects with behavioral inertia affect travel?
2. How much would “behavioral inertia” from COVID impact reopening? i.e., how much worse can traffic congestion get under reopening due to this change in behavior?
3. What is the effect of COVID-19 on mode choice travel behavior?

The presentation took examples from case studies to report findings from the dashboard as well as to lay out future work, particularly building out the model to analyze other policies and strategies considering COVID exposure and emissions, such as electric vehicles, social equity issues in traffic emissions, etc.