ATM WEBINAR: Territorial vulnerability and personal mobility during times of COVID-19
ATM WEBINAR: Territorial vulnerability and personal mobility during times of COVID-19
Last Tuesday, 1 February, a new ATM conference was held under the title Territorial vulnerability and personal mobility during times of COVID-19. Presented as a webinar, the event was held via the digital platform Zoom, featuring a presentation of the conclusions of the study entitled Diagnosis and monitoring of the data on rail mobility and daily mobility through mobile telephones during the COVID-19 health emergency
- View the video of the event’s broadcast.
Last Tuesday, 1 February, a new ATM conference was held under the title Territorial vulnerability and personal mobility during times of COVID-19. Presented as a webinar, the event was held via the digital platform Zoom, featuring a presentation of the conclusions of the study entitled Diagnosis and monitoring of the data on rail mobility and daily mobility through mobile telephones during the COVID-19 health emergency.
The research, undertaken between March 2020 and March 2021, was drawn up by Grup de Recerca en Energia, Territori i Societat within the framework of an agreement signed by Barcelona’s Metropolitan Transport Authority (ATM) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).
The conference, which included the participation of nearly 70 people, began with a welcome by the General Director of the ATM, Pere Torres, who stated that the mobility and income study formed part of the ATM’s pledge to uncover the structural factors of inequality in our society, in order to turn them around where possible within our realm of activity. Torres also extended his gratitude to the speakers for their input and thanked those attending the conference for their interest.
Next, the Director of the ATM’s Mobility Department, Lluís Alegre, explained the context of the work in terms of territorial area and the time period, while Jordi Martín, the Head of Digital Mapping and GIS within the ATM’S Mobility Department and co-author of the study, provided the specific details of the report and the methods applied within it.
As part of the schedule of lectures, the director of the study and a Main Researcher of the Grup d’Estudis sobre Energia Territori i Societat (Energy, Territory and Society Study Group, GURB) within the UAB’s Geography Department, Oriol Nel·lo, presented the conclusions of the report, which confirm the initial hypothesis: there is a definite correlation between income level and the capacity to reduce mobility of the people during the pandemic. It was clearly seen that the most vulnerable areas/ districts were the ones that had reduced their rail transport use the least during the COVID-19 crisis. This presentation can be viewed here.
Next, Ricard Gomà, the Director of the Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies of Barcelona (IERMB) at the UAB, took the floor to present diverse data on territorial vulnerability in the metropolitan area, covering issues such as social vulnerability (poverty, aging, loneliness, the circumstances of immigrants) and residential conditions, while laying bare the existence of axes of territorial segregation. He also acknowledged that the citizen protection measures had been positive (as was the case of the ERTOs, or Temporary Employment Regulation Records), while at the same time underscoring that this was not the case for those who did not form part of the labour market; they had been unprotected. This presentation can be viewed here.
Finally, the Vice Chancellor of Campus, Sustainability and Territory at the UAB, Carme Miralles, went over the role played by mobility during the pandemic and emphasised the importance of obtaining data from very different sources (travel pass validations and telephones), which had further strengthened the study. In this manner, Miralles also drew associations between the data and the results of the work day mobility survey (EMEF 2020). Among other conclusions, the Vice Chancellor assured listeners that the pandemic had inverted the premise that had previously linked greater income to greater mobility. In fact, the least socioeconomically vulnerable people had travelled less since they had been given the option of reducing their mobility. Miralles ultimately added that "the decrease in the use of public transport was circumstantial”, bearing in mind the most recently gathered data, where 74% of the people stated they would not change their mode of transport, regardless of the pandemic.
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