Public transit operators' resilience and sustainable development amid the COVID-19 pandemic: the case of Richmond, Virginia

Abstract

The Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) is used as an empirical case to demonstrate how a relatively small transit operator in the Richmond, Virginia, United States (RVA) region survived and thrived during the COVID19 pandemic period. During that time, GRTC experienced a substantial downturn in its system transit ridership. In response to this emergency, GRTC immediately took bold measures to protect its operators and riders, such as: serving essential trips, improving bus interior seat design, modifying operating schedules, matching service with the demand, implementing new boarding process, offering free transit services, broadening funding sources, and others. As a result, GRTC successfully and quickly overcame the pandemic crisis, and it embarked on the road to full recovery in its transit operation. In the post-pandemic future, GRTC expects that many of the adopted pandemic workplace safety and cleaning protocols will continue long-term as it takes time to rebuild people's trust in public transit. The successful lessons (in particular, in four areas: putting people's safety first; giving priority to serving essential trips; using a dynamic scheduling approach; and increasing and diversifying its funding sources) from GRTC could also be transferable to other similar transit services in the U.S. and elsewhere.