## 2 Literature Review
The findings of this study indicated that, during the transition to lockdown phase, only 5.3% of respondents shifted from public to private modes while a majority (approximately 51%) did not change their travelling mode. Further, they explained that the commuters perceived less importance on safety while choosing a mode. These finding highlights the importance of considering the available alternative travel modes during pandemics. A survey that was conducted in Australia concluded that approximately 58% of respondents were concerned about hygiene when using public transport during the pandemic compared to only 5% who concerned about hygiene on normal days [44]. This observation highlights the importance of cleanliness and hygiene when resuming the services. A recent study conducted in Poland revealed that 90% of respondents stopped or limited the use of public transport during the Covid-19 pandemic [45]. Although a majority (75%) of the respondents mentioned that they will use public transport again once the pandemic is over, the rest (25%) has entirely lost interest in public transport as they doubted that the services will ever be safe. This observation highlights that it is extremely important to maintain safety and comfort during the pandemic as the choice of public transport in the future will largely depend on the perceived safety. On the one hand public transport use declined, whereas on the other hand, the modal share of private transport and active modes, in general, increased around the world. For example, the modal share of private car increased from 48% to 77% and 43% to 65% due to the pandemic in Spain and Budapest, respectively [35; 37]. A global survey reported that car use increased from 32% to 39% due to the pandemic [42]. The study also reported an increase of about 7% in walking during the pandemic. In addition, knowledge and awareness about the pandemic and prevention measures may help in containing the virus transmission [46]. A nationwide study conducted in the United States reported that the lack of awareness about the prevention methods may increase the risk of the virus transmission in certain racial and ethnic communities [47]. However, empirical evidence also suggests that increased awareness about prevention measures may not necessarily increase compliance to the safety precautions, which may possibly be linked to low perceived risk of the COVID-19 pandemic [48]. Hence, awareness about both the risk of the disease as well as the prevention measures is necessary to contain the virus especially inside public transport. To resume public transport services in the post-Covid-19 era, regaining the attraction is crucial. A recent study highlighted that new policies, e.g., \"fare-free policy\", \"more rides-more discounts\", \"off-peak-hours free-ride policies\", could enhance the ridership [49]. This study concluded that the latter 2 policies increased the subway ridership by about 24%. However, there could still be hesitations and concerns to use public transit and as shown in [50], passengers, who are anxious and concerned about pandemic information, perceived less safety on public transport. In addition to such policies, additional payments can be provided to the public transport operators to maintain the services [51]. However, these solutions are short-term, and a major rethinking is required to provide persisting solutions.