Impact of Post-Covid-19 on driver behaviour: A perspective towards pandemic-sustained transportation

With the announcement of novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) as a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020, the whole world went into a lockdown that heavily affected human economic and social life. Since December 2020, with the discovery of effective vaccines, the world is now returning to some normality, particularly for those who are vaccinated. The multimodal transportation has resumed with majority of vaccinated drivers being back on road, driving to their work, and providing transport services. However, there are still several long-term Post-Covid-19 factors, affecting driver health and psychology.

The study deployed a systematic search strategy and selected 62 research publications after rigorous evaluation of the literature. The review was based on (1) forming the inclusion and exclusion criteria, (2) selecting the appropriate keywords, and (3) searching of relevant publications and assessing the eligible articles.

A broad perspective study is carried out to gauge the impact of Post-Covid-19 scenarios on the driver physical health and mindset in the context of road safety and pandemic-sustained transportation. It was found that the Post-Covid-19 factors such as wearing face-mask during driving, taking oral anti-viral drugs, and fear of contracting disease, significantly impact the driver's performance and situation awareness skills. The analysis suggested that driver's health vitals and psychological driving awareness can be precisely detected through hybrid driver state monitoring methods.

The paper conducts a comprehensive review of the published work and provides unique research opportunities to counteract the challenges involved in precise monitoring of driver behaviour under the effects of different Post-Covid-19 factors. The perspective suggested the possible solutions to live with the pandemic in the context of pandemic-sustained transportation.