James Li, a public relations account director, would rather spend an hour sitting in Beijing traffic than risk 30 minutes exposed to crowds on a train. “Traffic is as bad as it could be” but the subway is still too dicey, he said.
In Frankfurt, real estate assistant Anna Pawliczek is driving to work for the first time in her career. “I definitely have always preferred to chill out in the train, instead of being stuck at traffic lights,” she said. But days after Germany ended its lockdown, her company is asking returning employees to avoid public transportation at all costs.
Gasoline demand is rebounding, suggesting that the car — at least for now — is making a comeback. As lockdowns ease and parts of the world reopen for business, driving has emerged as the socially distant transportation mode of choice and is offering some near-term relief to an oil market fresh off its worst crash in history and reeling from an unprecedented collapse in energy demand.
“People are using more their cars because they are afraid to use public transportation,” Patrick Pouyanne, the chief executive of French oil giant Total SA, said.
It’s too soon to say whether this change is permanent. In some parts of Asia that reopened earlier than the rest of the world, people are venturing back onto trains. And it’s unclear whether global gasoline demand will ever fully recover.
“At least at the beginning of our way back to normality, we expect a decrease in the use of public transportation,” said Josu Jon Imaz, the head of Spanish oil company Repsol SA.
Rush Hour Returns
It’s a phenomenon that may begin to reverse the dramatic reductions in air pollution the world’s busiest cities have seen in recent months as travel and industrial operations ground to a halt. In Berlin, among the first European cities to relax its lockdown, public transit use remains down 61% while the number of people driving has recovered to 28% below normal, according to data from Apple Inc., which tracks requests for directions on its popular Maps app.