There has been widespread interest in the potential for the significant behavioural and policy adaptations rendered necessary by Coronavirus to act as a catalyst for radical longer term policy change in transport. However, this body of work to date has been limited in its consideration of how such policy change might be brought about. Translating the lessons from the Coronavirus response to other ongoing strategic challenges such as decarbonisation requires analysis of what the pandemic has revealed about processes of policy formulation and how institutions responsible for policy implementation actually work.

This paper explores the extent to which rapid policy change has actually been possible in the transport sector in England and Scotland during the pandemic, and key examples of how such change has been both achieved and blocked. Two rounds of interviews with senior stakeholders from across the transport sector were undertaken in June and November 2020 to inform the analysis.

We find that the pandemic has accelerated some policy commitments that were already planned, but at a time of huge stress on the whole of government and its partner delivery organisations, the potential to deliver radical policy adaptation was limited. However, Coronavirus is recognised as being a potentially path-changing disruption to existing trajectories in terms of the adaptations to business practices, industry structures, ways of working and the public finances. Paradoxically, whilst recognising these uncertainties, decision-makers are yet to deviate from pre-pandemic planning assumptions and policy plans and this risks missing the opportunities to steer how those changes unfold.

人们普遍关注冠状病毒所必需的重大行为和政策调整的潜力，以作为激进的长期交通政策变革的催化剂。然而，迄今为止，这部分工作在考虑如何实现这种政策变化方面受到了限制。将应对冠状病毒的经验教训转化为脱碳等其他持续的战略挑战，需要分析大流行病揭示的政策制定过程以及负责政策实施的机构如何实际运作。

本文探讨了在大流行期间英格兰和苏格兰的运输部门实际上可以在多大程度上快速改变政策，以及如何实现和阻止这种改变的关键例子。2020 年 6 月和 2020 年 11 月对交通运输部门的高级利益相关者进行了两轮访谈，为分析提供信息。

我们发现，大流行病加速了一些已经计划好的政策承诺，但在整个政府及其合作伙伴交付组织承受巨大压力的时候，实现激进政策调整的潜力是有限的。然而，冠状病毒被认为是在适应商业惯例、行业结构、工作方式和公共财政方面对现有轨迹的潜在路径改变破坏。矛盾的是，尽管决策者认识到这些不确定性，但他们尚未偏离大流行前的规划假设和政策计划，这有可能错失引导这些变化如何展开的机会。