Impact of COVID-19 on urban public transport in medium-sized Spanish cities

Abstract

This article analyzes the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions applied to contain it have had on urban public transport services in the five Spanish cities with a population in the interval of 170,000 inhabitants. To do this, the passenger data of the different urban transport systems of these cities have been studied, their evolution throughout the pandemic and in the so-called new normality has been analyzed, and they have been compared with those of previous years. The result shows a fairly similar percentage decrease in most cases, which also corresponds to the trend registered in the set of urban services in Spain. There is no relationship between the existing passenger traffic in each service before the pandemic and the decrease experienced during it. However, those cities that previously registered a higher volume of users show a greater percentage recovery in 2021 than those whose volume of travelers was lower.