The trend of working or studying from home more often seems to be a new habit that the Swedes will bring with them from the COVID-19 crisis. Of the respondents who work or study, as many as 44% responded that they work or study from home to a greater extent than usual now during the pandemic. More interesting is that as many as 37% of them responded that they plan to continue working or studying from home more often even when the pandemic is over. The trend is more evident among men (45%) and among those over 60 (53%).
For those who can work from home, I think the crisis has taught us to be more digital. Many have noticed that it is possible to work at home more often, which opens up new opportunities for those who may want to live in the country but at the same time have a job in the big city. Even for those who live and work in larger cities, this means that you can save commuting time by working remotely more often than before. For public transportation, it would be good if you could use this to offset the costly peak traffic.
Eva Tiséus, Marketing and Communications Director of Transdev Sweden
Public transportation runs the risk of losing 6.5% of its regular passengers
Of those who state that, under normal circumstances, they usually travel to work or school with public transportation, nearly 30 percent say they have changed their mode of travel during the pandemic. Of these, one in four respondents state that they will not, or do not know if they will, return to public transportation after the pandemic. This corresponds to approximately 6.5 percent of those who stated that they usually travel to work or school with public transportation.
The encouraging message is that the majority of public transportation customers state that they will continue with public transportation when the pandemic is over. But it also shows that 2 percent have already found other modes of travel that they will stick to and that 4.5 percent do not know whether they will return to public transportation or continue with their alternative route. It shows the importance of maintaining a robust public transportation and continuing to develop to make it an attractive choice and avoid increased motoring. In Wuhan, China, the market share of the car doubled as the community reopened while public transport halved. Such a development in Sweden would be devastating for the environment.
Eva Tiséus, Marketing and Communications Director of Transdev Sweden
Do you want to see our suggestions to address these two trends? Watch the video below.