IMPACT OF COVID-19

ON TRAVEL AND
TRANSPORT INDUSTRY

INNOVATION PROJECT
MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS

2020SUBMITTED TO
MS AAKANKSHA KAUSHIK
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
SUBMITTED BY
SARANSH JAIN
2K20/UMBA/34
ASHMEET SINGH
2K20/UMBA/08
 OVERVIEW

Overview of what we have done in innovation project.

 Studied various researches and facts about the transportation industry
before Covid-19.
 Collected information about the status of various modes of
transportation and travel during the every stage of lockdown and
during the unlock. The data is being presented in tabulated from in
every section to give better illustration.
 We conducted a survey to get better insights how people are reacting to
the travel and transportation requirements after the lockdown and
reacted during the lockdown.
 Understanding how demand of people to travel during and after the
lockdown affected the Travel and Transport Industry.
 Analysed the survey results to give a conclusion and recommendations
about what will be the transportation and travel scenario after the
lockdown.

Roll no 2K20/UMBA/08 &34

 INDEX

S.No. CONTENTS Page

No.
1. Introduction 1
2. Impact on Airline Industry 1-4
3. Impact on Railway Industry 5-6
4. Impact on Trucks and Cargo 7-8
5. Survey Conducted Using Primary Data on-
5.1 Impact on Public Transport 9-12
5.2 Impact on Outstation Travelling 13
5.3 Impact on Cargo and Online Deliveries 14
6. Summary 15
7. Recommendations 17
Introduction
One of the main sectors that has been seriously affected by the effects of the COVID-
19 pandemic is transport sector. Different states adapted different mechanisms to
tackle the coronavirus. MHA has issues certain guidelines which include social and
distancing and wearing the masks were mandatory. The capital city Delhi has
regulated several guidelines for the movement of people in the public transport in
official as well as commercial complexes inclusive of physical distancing within public
transport, curtailing transit service and halting the metro services. The Delhi metro
was reopened on 9.9.2020 with the unlock 9.0 that is being going on. People
travelling daily by different sources of medium is around 1,00,000 per day which is
very much lower than 480,000 people travelling per day during pre-COVID. This is
because of physical distancing norms restricting the number of passengers, work
from home scenario and psychological fear of using the public transportation. The
safety norms have been changing frequently along the stages and period of
coronavirus times. In further sections, we will cover the status of various types of
transport sectors in some of the states of India and the cities during the COVID-19
along with its impact.

Sanitization of Metro for Precautions from Covid 19

Impact on Airlines Sector

There was 33% decline in the number of passengers that travelled in March 2020 by
a figure of 7.762 million, as compared to 11.6 million travelled during the same
period previously. According to the sources, it has been reported that the aviation
industry is likely to record reduction of 3 to 14% people in domestic flights. However,
when the domestic flights in the India opened at the total of only 21,696 departures

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as noticed in June 2020 and there was 86,456 on June 2019, which reported 74.9%
reduction.
Indian Airways were only running 25% flights instead as compares to the flights that
Air India were running in the same quarter previous year.

Vande Bharat Flight

Since 7th May 2020, Indian Aviation Industry has been operating International flights
under the name of the ‘Vande Matram’.

Flights during lockdown

pg. 2 Roll no 2K20/UMBA/08 &34

From the sources, it can be stated that the number of passengers carried out in the
domestic flight travelled in first two quarter of 2020 is reduced by almost half,
dropping from 70.7 million in 2019 to the figure of 35.2 million in 2020.

Lockdown 1.0  Since March 25, 2020, no domestic

commercial passenger flights have been
permitted in the region.
Lockdown 2.0
 Enabled to reopen with orders to retain
physical distance, the government
declared some relaxations from 20 April.
Cargo transport vehicles, including
lorries, trains and aircraft, are well
accepted.
 All domestic and international
scheduled airlines operations remained
suspended. However, restrictions not
applied to
 international all-cargo operations and
Lockdown 3.0 flights specifically approved by the
DGCA.
 National carrier Air India opened
bookings for selected domestic flights
from May 4 onwards and also for
international flights from June 1 under
Vande Mantaram.

 Cargo flights and special flights

authorised by aviation regulator DGCA
have been permitted to operate during
this period.

 Vande Bharat Mission, which

commenced from May 7, gets in its third
phase, which began on June 11. Air India
group has operated a total of 1,414 flights
(both inbound and outbound) carrying a
total of 182,313 passengers till June 24,
2020.
Lockdown 4.0  Airports across the country got opened
and domestic flights started operation in
a graded manner since 25.5.2020.
Unlock 1.0  Air india opened international bookings
from June 1,2020
 4 of May, 2020 with just 20 flights a day,
Mumbai airport began domestic
operations. Due to Covid-19 travel
restrictions,

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Unloak 2.0 and 3.0  Project Vande Bharat is the biggest
repatriation campaign by any nation to
bring back its trapped abroad
Unlock 4.0  No international flight until sept 30
except Vande;Air Bubble flights continue
with Vande Bharatm

Table 6: Comparison of Domestic Air Passengers and Transported in 2019 and

2020

Vande Bharat Mission during lockd

AIRLINE DOMESTIC PASSENGERS

Passengers ( In Number )
2019 PASSENGERS FREIGHT MAIL
JULY 1,18,63,940.0 62,772.7 2,439.9
AUGUST 1,17,56,732.0 62,869.0 2,255.1
SEPTEMBER 1,14,88,069.0 62,133.1 1,976.1
OCTOBER 1,22,80,250.0 65,966.8 1,933.8
NOVEMBER 1,29,10,135.0 58,235.3 2,315.7
DECEMBER 1,29,80,408.0 56,749.3 2,379.8
2020 PASSENGERS FREIGHT MAIL
JANUARY 1,27,47,356.0 58,336.4 2,610.2
FEBRUARY 1,23,30,204.0 56,108.0 2,533.7
MARCH 77,35,665.0 41,993.5 438.4
APRIL
MAY
JUNE 19,76,228.0 29,815.0 1,569.7

pg. 4 Roll no 2K20/UMBA/08 &34

Impact on Railways
With the beginning of Lockdown 1.0, Indian railways cancelled all the passenger
trains to control the spread of the COVID 19 virus cases in India. All the daily
13,500 passenger trains (Both passenger & long-distance trains) of Indian
railways as well as metro operations in metropolitan cities were halted since 25th
March, 2020.

Indian Railways trains during lockdown

This ban was not applicable to the cargo trains from the very first day. To ensure
that the essential and important goods are supplied to the different part of the
countries, 9000 number of goods and cargo trains were running during the
lockdown till 31st May 2020.

Sanitization of trains by Indian Railways

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The timeline during the lockdown is as follows:
Lockdown
Period Railway Operations
 On March 21st, 2020, all the railway operations in all parts of india
were suspended in wake of the corona virus outbreak. No train was
Lockdown allowed to work till 30th June 2020.
1.0  On 29th March 2020, the Indian Railways announced services for
special parcel trains to move essential goods, additionally to the
regular freight service.
 The Indian Railways allowed all freight trains for the operation to avoid
Lockdown
dispatch of essential goods supply and to ensure that
2.0
essential supplies reach in various parts of the country, because of this
movement of goods and parcel trains were kept continued.
 Restrictions that were imposed on the operation of all passenger train
services by Indian Railways was extended till 17th May 2020.
 Few special trains were started including 15 pairs of trains which started
Lockdown
running from May 12.
3.0
 Operation of 300 trains running every day as ‘Shramik Specials’ for the
travelling of stranded migrants’ workers, pilgrim, tourist, students,
and other essential persons from different parts of the country.
Lockdown  Booking of trains started from 21st May 2020
4.0
Unlock 1.0  Till this time, Only Shramik Special and 15 pairs of Special Rajdhani
and 2.0 Express trains along with 100 pair special timetabled train are in
operation.
 Regular mail/express and suburban train across the country
Unlock 3.0 remain suspended.
 People cancelled 17.80 million confirmed train during the first
five months of lockdown period
 Addition of 80 more passenger trains which remained suspended due to
COVID-19 started operations from 12th September 2020
Unlock 4.0
 However, other Regular mail/express and suburban train services remain
suspended.

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 Table 8: Comparison of Rail Passengers and Transported in 2019 and 2020
RAILWAYS
FREIGHT LOADING
2019 NO. OF PASSENGERS BOOKED (MILLIONS)
(MILLION TONNES)
SUBURBAN NON-SUBURBAN TOTAL
JULY 406.49 307.02 712.51 99.59
AUGUST 390.11 300.33 690.44 90.92
SEPTEMBER 398.33 293.33 691.66 88.39
OCTOBER 394.84 308.07 702.91 93.65
NOVEMBER 391.97 307.77 699.74 100.85
DECEMBER 407.05 286.16 693.21 108.63
FREIGHT LOADING
2020 NO. OF PASSENGERS BOOKED (MILLIONS)
(MILLION TONNES)
JANUARY SUBURBAN NON-SUBURBAN TOTAL
FEBRUARY 386.49 289.42 675.91 106.28
MARCH 256.85 179.20 436.05 102.90
APRIL 0.00 -7.92 -7.92 65.30
MAY 0.00 -4.22 -4.22 82.46

Impact on trucks and cargos

The movement of commodity traffic across the country has decreased by as
much as 90 to 95% since the 2nd and 3rd day of lockdown in March 2020, i.e.
during Lockdown1.0, except for the transport of vital commodities. The table
presents the scenario of the effect of the lockdown on the country's trucking
operations, while Figure 9 presents the usual comparison of the daily flow of
goods traffic for a typical pre-covid period and during the lockdown period i.e.
until 20.4.2020.
Table : Impact of Impact of Lockdown on Goods Traffic Operations

Lockdown Freight
Period
 According to the All-India Motor Transport Congress, regular
movement of goods traffic was down to 10 percent of usual
levels.
 Sales of diesel and gasoline by India's three largest state-
run fuel retailers in March decreased by an estimated 26 perce
Lockdown 1.0 nt and 17 percent respectively.

 Initially, Lockdown 1.0 permitted only the production and

supply of critical commodities.
 Since 20 April2020, the MHA has eased the movement of goods
traffic to ensure a smooth supply of all types of goods across the
country, meaning normal trucking operations have been
Lockdown 2.0 restored.
 No separate passes were essential for the movement of trucks
and goods carriers, as per the guidelines provided by the MHA,
empty trucks used.

pg. 7 Roll no 2K20/UMBA/08 &34

 2 3 2

Prior to Lockdown During Lockdown

Figure 9: Daily Freight flow (in million tonnes)

Transportation of Non-essential goods allowed during lockdown

pg. 8 Roll no 2K20/UMBA/08 &34

 SURVEY

Impact on Public Transport

76.9% People have been out in lockdown or after the lockdown.

Majority of people are not traveling through public transport after the lockdown

pg. 9 Roll no 2K20/UMBA/08 &34

 Mostly people have used metro as a public transport to travel after unlock

80% now prefer to travel in only private transport now

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 Majority of people think that it will take 1-2 years for the transport sector to become
normal

61.1% people now choose to use cycle or Non motor vehicle over cars and two wheelers.

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Mostly people feel that it is unsafe to travel in public transport now because of the spread
of COVID-19 though contact with others

Government has recently increased fairs in various public transports, 66.7% people think
that due to the crisis and unemployment, fares should not be increased.

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 Impact on travelling in Public Transport Outstation

76.9% people have not travelled outstation since March 2020

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 Impact on Cargos and Online Deliveries

41% people are rarely affected by the COVID-19 from ordering the products from
ecommerce market online.

75.6% people preferred to buy the essential commodities from their nearest markets
instead of ordering them online.

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 SUMMARY
It is also predicted that the overall travel conduct of individuals will change
significantly with respect. Most respondents prefer private transportation over
public transportation and there is a huge reduction in the amount of people
travelling outside because of the increasing unemployment and work from
home practices. People have started preferring two wheelers over metro to
ensure safety against coronavirus which is giving boost to the sales of two
wheelers in the country. Non-motorized vehicle like cycles is preferred more.
Sales of cycles have increase rapidly during the pandemic because of cost cutting
and to maintain the healthy lifestyle during this pandemic. But it can be seen
that these changes are very short term and can revert back after the pandemic.

The key results that we noticed during this analysis is:

 Because of decreased travel demand, transport operators will face serious
financial constraints in the near future.
 The choice of mode will be affected by concerns about safety.
Public transport will also be a less common way for people to ride.
 Investment in developing the infrastructure for non-
motorised transport (NMT) and electric vehicles in the transport sector
should be prioritized by the government.
 One to two years will be required for the transportation sector to get
normal.

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  The understanding of safety with respect to the use of public transport
increased with age during the pandemic.
 Public transport faces tremendous setbacks in terms of the number of
passengers, as many of them opt for private post lock-down travel modes.

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 RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the analysis here are few recommendations that we have derived
which can help to make the scenario of the transportation industry better.
 Rebuild public faith in healthy public transport with robust hygiene and
physical distance steps.
 Develop a fiscal plan and fiscal instruments focused on reform to
encourage the regeneration of transit services and reduce the cost
burden on bus systems.
 Allocate more secure bus lanes to optimize the use and carrying capacity
of the fleet.
 The introduction of long-term plans to improve interconnected public
transport and services.
 Take steps to eliminate unnecessary travel trips and transfer short trips to
walking and cycling as much as possible, such as working from home,
staggered timing, etc.
 Emergency scaling up of safe footpaths and bike lanes with adaptive
barriers to allow access to the workplace for all income levels and to meet
other needs within a fair radius.

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