Mayor's Resilience Fund

The Mayor’s Resilience Fund is a £1 million challenge fund calling on tech innovators to develop solutions to some of London’s biggest challenges.  

One of the Mayor’s Resilience Fund challenges is ‘COVID-Safe Travel’. Innovators are asked to develop ideas that will help increase Londoners’ confidence using public transport and enable a safe re-opening of London’s economy.  

A big thank you to everyone who took part in this survey on travelling and using public transport during the pandemic. We shared your views with the tech start-ups taking part in this year’s Mayor’s Resilience Fund COVID-safe travel challenge. The winners of the challenge were announced on 13 July. 

We received almost 1,000 responses from our members. 

Amongst many other things you told us that: 

• The majority of you had used the bus (59%) or the Tube (56%) in the past two weeks. Just under half of you had been on a train (48%) or used your car (46%), and fewer of you had used your bike (26%) or a taxi/private hire vehicle (20%) to get around. 
• You are using buses and trains a lot less now than you did before the pandemic, but you’re walking much more than you used to. 
• You’re feeling somewhat unsure about using public transport during the pandemic, with the majority of you not feeling comfortable taking public transport during rush hour – especially into Central London. 
• Wearing masks and distancing would make those of you who feel uncomfortable feel safer, as shown in the word cloud of your responses below. 

Update: On 14 July, the Mayor asked Transport for London to keep face covering compulsory after 19 July, the day all remaining COVID-19 restrictions are set to be lifted. Read more about the decision in the press release.

Thanks again for sharing your views. We will keep you posted on what’s next.