Believe it or not, it has been just over 2 years since COVID hit the UK in a big way. Wow, that feels like an age ago, and what a ride the last few years has been. Throughout that time, the Department for Transport’s Transport use during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic dataset has churned out amazingly useful data on how the transport world has changed. And its still going.

So now, with things seemingly settling down and, I daresay, approaching some degree of normality, how are we using transport now?

From the data, it seems that transport patterns are much more settled than they were previously. The use of motor vehicles generally is back to what it was before the pandemic, although this is slightly higher for Light Commercial Vehicles (vans). Cycling is fluctuating, but it appears to be fluctuating largely at or above pre-COVID levels.

Even on public transport, use is trending more positive. All modes of public transport are trending either at or above 80% of pre-pandemic levels. For National Rail and London Underground, this is at around the passenger numbers of 2010-2014.

Missing from this is walking of course. But we know from wider research that walking levels are much higher across the population. The same research also indicates that a not-insignificant number of people are downsizing from two cars to one. Official data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders on car ownership appears to confirm this trend.

As for home working, ONS data has shown that at least 38% of people in work had worked from home at least some of the time in the last 7 days. So home working seems to be here to stay!

So what can we conclude on this? From my reading of this, it is something simple: the simple changes have stuck. More home working for those able to do it, more walking locally, and getting rid of one car in two car households. Car ownership generally is going down, but it is not benefitting public transport that may well have a very bad case of long COVID.

Who could have predicted this in March 2020?