  The COVID-19 pandemic changed various aspects of our daily lives, including
the way in which we travel and commute. Working from home has become
significantly more popular since the beginning of the pandemic and is expected
to remain a reality for many people even when COVID-19 no longer poses a
threat. Decreased commuting trips may also have environmental benefits as
people will be able to reduce their overall travel. Working from home may
present an opportunity to accelerate the Scottish Government's 'Mission Zero
for transport', which aims to decarbonise the transport sector by 2045,
however, meeting this target also depends on restoring faith in public
transport, which saw significant decreases in usage during the pandemic, and
increasing other forms of sustainable travel (e.g., walking and cycling). In
this study we investigate various aspects of Scottish residents' climate change
and COVID-19 perceptions using survey data (n=1,050) collected in Scotland
during January 2022. Quota restraints were enforced for age and gender to
ensure the survey sample was approximately representative of the Scottish
population. The survey also included a discrete choice experiment to
investigate mode preferences for commuting trips in different working from home
and COVID-19 risk scenarios. Our findings show that some people still need to
be convinced that their travel choices can have an effect on climate change and
the spread of infectious diseases. The discrete choice experiment showed that
the use of cars for commuting is relatively consistent regardless of the
working from home situation, however, bicycles become more popular in high
working from home scenarios. As expected, the attractiveness of public
transport decreases with increased COVID-19 risk and private modes become more
popular.
