Citation: Olayode, I.O.; Severino, A.G.; Campisi, T.; Tartibu, L.K. Comprehensive Literature Review on the Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on Public Road Transportation System: Challenges and Solutions. Sustainability 2022, 14, 9586. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su14159586 Received: 1 July 2022 Accepted: 29 July 2022 Published: 4 August 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Review Comprehensive Literature Review on the Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on Public Road Transportation System: Challenges and Solutions Isaac Oyeyemi Olayode 1, * , Alessandro Gaetano Severino 2 , Tiziana Campisi 3 and Lagouge Kwanda Tartibu 1 1 Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg P.O. Box 2028, South Africa 2 Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy 3 Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Kore University of Enna, 94100 Enna, Italy * Correspondence: olayode89@gmail.com Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant public health problem and the leading cause of reduction in the demand and supply of public transit in the last three years. It has caused an unprecedented reduction in the demand for public road transportation, and it has changed passengers’ perceptions from positive to negative when it comes to using public transportation amenities. There is an increasing concern that the public road transportation systems are witnessing a new horizon, especially now that developed and developing countries are trying to resume their daily activities post COVID-19 pandemic. In this research, we focused on the overview of literature reviews of research within the past three years that focused on the challenges and solutions of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public road transportation systems, especially when it comes to the enforcement of physical distancing in public transportation, usage of face masks and government interventions. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were used in reviewing the articles used for this literature review, and an original 140 articles were reduced to 100 articles that were used in this literature review. This research aims to create an overview literature review that highlights the impact of the pandemic on public transportation and identifies strategic ways in which urban planners and public road transportation researchers can develop constructive and efficient public road transportation planning to ensure the sustainability of public transportation systems in the post-COVID-19 era. This literature review extends our knowledge of the COVID-19 pandemic in public road transportation. It also provides additional evidence concerning the effectiveness of physical distancing and the use of face masks to prevent the COVID-19 virus in public road transportation networks. Keywords: COVID-19; pandemic; public road transportation; physical distancing; face masks 1. Introduction A pandemic can be defined as a global disease outbreak found in both developed and developing countries, which at the time of the outbreak had no cure or vaccine to reduce its effect on the human body or the chances of hospitalization [1–3]. It can lead to enormous absenteeism, changes in a country’s socio-economic landscape, and a limitation in its medical solutions, thereby causing an interruption in the global supply chain. All of these adverse effects of a pandemic can have enormous effects on the day-to-day activities of large multinational companies and the sustainability of large, medium, and small-scale transportation companies. It also highlights a compelling research question: can we say that preparing for a global pandemic is different from preparing for natural hazards such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and hazardous chemical spills? The answer is yes; due to the influence of disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and oil spillage, they can influence infrastructural development and significantly affect human beings and transportation Sustainability 2022, 14, 9586. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159586 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability