In episode 5 of the Inside Intertraffic podcast Paul Hutton and Kevin Borras talk to three public transport professionals whose jobs have got a great deal more challenging over the last few months. During the pandemic public transport ridership statistics have been for alarming reading, with cities all over the world recording anything up to a 90% dip, which, combined with often conflicting and confusing messages from local and national governments, have led to a time of unprecedented nervousness from the public and widescale anxiety from the PT operators. So how has the industry been reacting?
First up is Nick Illsley, a veteran of over 25 years in the UK rail sector before a 12-year stint as chief executive of world-first journey planner Transport Direct. Nick talks passionately about public transport’s crucial role in maintaining a degree of “normality” in unprecedented times and how the crisis has seen the role of transport, particularly public transport, change.
Our second guest is Sergio Fernandez of EMT, Madrid’s highly innovative public transport company, and Kevin spoke to him about how the pandemic has seen the implementation process of new and exciting ideas be reduced from years to weeks and about how EMT went about restoring the city’s faith in the public transport systems.
Finally, after Paul and Kevin discuss some of the more prominent instances of pandemic-motivated PT funding across Europe, Paul catches up with Aimsun’s Martin Hartmann to talk about how his company’s cutting-edge transport modelling software has been helping cities keep track of changing transport behaviour over this past few months. “Simulation is a great tool for city planners to start working towards a new normal” is his memorable message.