Data on travel from China and Sweden is painting an early picture of how different a post-lockdown world could look.
Predicting future behaviour is often fraught with risk and doubly so when the world is turned upside down by a pandemic.
Trying to forecast what life will be like a few years, months or even weeks from now isn’t straightforward, even when examining some simple human behaviours — like how many people will be dining at restaurants or using public transit again.
But some early data is emerging available from two noteworthy countries — China and Sweden.
China has the most post-lockdown experience because it’s believed that’s where the novel coronavirus originated. Sweden, meanwhile, decided not to shut down its economy like most developed countries and can offer a glimpse of how people could act when the economy in Canada and other countries is fully open again even though the threat of COVID-19 still exists.
Travel data from the two countries provides some insight into what to expect in terms of how many people will continue to work from home, traffic patterns on city streets, the eagerness of shoppers to return to stores and how long until travellers will have the confidence to catch a flight, among many other observations.
Peoples’ new travel habits will have broad implications for the economy, especially the oil sector, which saw demand plummet for fuel during the pandemic.
Will rush hour traffic return?
City drivers have no doubt already noticed streets beginning to slowly fill up again as lockdown restrictions are eased, but data suggests it will take a while before rush hour becomes as painful as it was pre-COVID.
In China, a similar number of vehicles are already back on the road, but figures analysed by Sproule, an energy consultancy, show how people in that country are still choosing not to drive as much as in the past. Trips are still mainly for essentials, such as going to work and getting groceries.
A similar pattern is seen in Sweden. Looking at mobility data from Google COVID-19 community mobility reports for all types of transportation, people are visiting retail shops and attractions like movie theatres 21 per cent less, going to subway, bus and transit stations