This article explores the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for public transport. Three elements are explored. Firstly, the short-term effects, including perceptions of public transport as a vector of virus transmission and shifts towards less-sustainable modes of transport. Secondly, we discuss key challenges such as the new difficulties of providing safe and reliable public transport services, the consequent barriers for the promotion of sustainable and healthy urban mobilities and the potential exacerbation of inequalities. Finally, we assess future research directions focussing on how pandemics should be monitored and the need to construct sustainable and human-scale cities.

Of all the activities associated with tourism, transport is the one that creates most pollution. However, the mobility of tourists at their destination is an activity that has so far received very little attention from researchers in comparison with that afforded to the transport mode used to travel from their point of origin to their destination. This paper provides new evidence about the use of public transport by tourists at their final destination. The study is based on data obtained from a survey conducted with tourists (N = 4336) on the Costa Daurada (Catalonia), a Mediterranean sun and beach resort. The empirical analysis is based on estimations made using a multinomial model of the transport mode chosen by tourists to travel to the Costa Daurada combined with another model that estimated the probability of them using public transport during their stay. The results show that the tourists who arrived by private car were the ones who least used public transport at the destination. This was despite the fact that these tourists had the profile that made them most likely to use this type of transportation. On the other hand, although the tourists who arrived by plane had the profile that made them least likely to use public transport, they were the ones who used it most. It is, therefore, possible to conclude that, in addition to tourist profile, another key factor in deciding whether tourists will use public transport at their destination is whether they will take their own car.

This article analyses the factors that determine the mode of transport (bus, taxi or private car) chosen by tourists for transfers from a peripherally located high-speed rail station to their final destination. The study is based on a survey completed by tourists who used high-speed rail services to travel to the Costa Daurada, a tourism area on the Mediterranean coast of Southern Catalonia, Spain. The results of this study show that variables associated with the characteristics of the stay had a more decisive influence upon the decisions made by the travellers than the socio-demographic profiles of the tourists surveyed. The availability of direct public transport services for transfers from the station to the final destinations was a much more relevant factor than the cost and duration of the resulting trip. This study provides empirical evidence of the importance of accessibility for peripheral stations. In these cases, good connections via public transport apparently play a key role in both improving tourism development and promoting more sustainable mobility within the region.

DOI: 10.4067/S0718-34022016000300004 URL: http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0718-34022016000300004&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en Filiació URV: SIIt has been analyzed the mobility patterns in the Camp de Tarragona (Catalonia) towards a complete exploitation of the record of public transport passengers in the region during the period 2010-2013. The paper provides evidences of the eff ects of tourist seasonality in the coastal urban areas (Costa Dorada), but also shows how it revolutionizes the mobility patterns of the whole region. It allows the identification of an urban hierarchies and regional centralities that become flexible and variables during the year. The results of the work highlight how tourism is fuelling deep processes of territorial restructuring and building new metropolitan dynamics in Mediterranean tourist regions.Se analizan las pautas de movilidad en el Camp de Tarragona (Cataluña) a partir de una explotación exhaustiva del registro de viajeros en transporte público de la región durante el período 2010-2013. El trabajo aporta evidencias de los efectos de la estacionalidad turística en los núcleos del litoral (Costa Dorada), pero también demuestra como ésta revoluciona las pautas de movilidad del conjunto de la región. De ello se desprende la identificación de unas jerarquías urbanas y unas centralidades regionales flexibles y variables durante el año. Los resultados del trabajo evidencian el papel del turismo como motor de profundos procesos de reestructuración territorial y vertebrador de dinámicas metropolitanas en regiones turísticas del Mediterráneo

We analysed the determinants of the length of stay for tourists arriving in a Mediterranean coastal destination by means of high-speed rail (HSR) service. This study is based on data obtained from a survey completed by HSR passengers returning from holiday in Costa Daurada (Catalonia). The empirical analysis is based on estimations made using a survival model. The influence of the availability of HSR service on tourists’ destination choices together with the tourists’ profiles, party structure or accommodation characteristics was used as explanatory variables. Results revealed that the existence of HSR services played a minor role in tourists’ decision of whether to visit the Costa Daurada. Also, evidence suggests that the existence of the HSR station would only affect the length of stay of those tourists who stay overnight in second residences.