The redesigning of transport to cope with an uncertain future will also allow local authorities to consider all the options with a fresh perspective.

That was the underlining message to come from the latest ITS (UK) Coronavirus webinar featuring some of the country’s leading researchers in different aspects of transport technology.

Dr Siddartha Khastgir from WMG at the University of Warwick said: “Every time we try to make a change in the way of working or we try to bring a change in our organisations, there’s always resistance, but this situation has shown us when you’re forced to then be absolutely capable of making that change.

Fellow academic, Dr Anil Namdeo from Newcastle University agreed this is a real chance to ‘reset and rethink’ adding, “This will change the travel pattern and consequently demand on public and private transport. I think we need to talk about alternative modes.”

“This actually might accelerate some changes, said Paul Bate from the Connected Places Catapult. “So there is an opportunity here, but it relies to a large extent, on funding from the Government to underpin that work of the industry, because industry is really challenged at the moment, industry is looking at real big shocks to both its supply chain and also its customer base. They’re looking at how they can make themselves resilient and sound, what their markets are and how those markets might change going forwards as well.”