The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted on policy on, and public perceptions and usages of, public transport, with buses and trains positioned as mobile infection hotspots. As part of the same dynamic, private automobility, and in particular the car, has been re-instated as a preferred, because ‘safe’, mode of urban transport. Alongside these defining shifts, we have also witnessed significant uptake of cycling, electric scooters, and motorcycles as means to avoid resultant congestion and to mitigate ecological harm. What has the pandemic experience done to public and policy orientations toward sustainable transport in the here and the now? What futures are promised for such transport in the light of public and policy concerns about the ongoing threat presented by infectious disease? What are we to make of the fortunes of sustainable transport options, orientations and behaviours going forward? Establishing compelling visions of, and policies and practices for, sustainable transport (in the light of the challenges presented by this pandemic, and potentially future pandemics) has become an urgent matter. This event seeks to make a contribution to thinking through what such visions, policies and practices may look like.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Steve Melia (Senior Lecturer in Planning and Transport, Faculty of Environment and Technology) – Decarbonisation after COVID-19

• Professor Graham Parkhurst (Professor of Sustainable Mobility and Director of the Centre for Transport & Society, UWE Bristol) – Has Experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic Made a Permanent Difference to the Sustainable Mobility Policy Discourse?

• Professor Lucy Budd (Professor of Air Transport Management, De Montfort University, Leicester) – Towards Responsible Transport: Reflections on the Implications of Pandemic

• Silviya Barrett (Head of Policy, Research and Projects, Better Transport) - Covid-10 recovery: Renewing public transport post-Covid?

• Counsellor Kye Dudd (Bristol City Council Transport Strategy) – The Pandemic: Accelerating Policy and Practice for Active Travel

• Jon Usher (Head of Partnerships, Sustrans) – Active Travel – The Role for Walking and Cycling in the New Normal