Navigating disruption in public transit: Lessons from the COVID experiences of ten agencies that enjoyed pre-pandemic ridership growth

Abstract

Public transit agencies must navigate disruptive events. Most disruptions are geographically constrained or temporally limited in duration. However, the COVID pandemic is the rare case of a societal scale disruption that affected all transit agencies over a period lasting many months. This study examines the pandemic experiences of ten transit agencies that enjoyed ridership growth prior to the pandemic (which we refer to as “successful agencies”). The authors interviewed agency leaders to learn about their pre-disruption rider markets and service, the disruption’s effect on their ridership and the service adjustments they made in response, and their strategies for engaging with riders and transit employees during the disruption. The authors learned that agencies that had a larger transit-dependent ridership base were less severely impacted by the pandemic than their peers. The more successful agencies prioritized the needs of these core riders when making service decisions, communicated in a transparent manner with their riders and employees, and possessed leadership that was strategic in their decision making. The insights obtained from the study increase our knowledge about the impacts and mitigators of disruptive events, like the COVID pandemic, and offer lessons to other agencies that might confront disruptions in the future.