Risk of COVID-19 Infection in Public Transportation: The Development of a Model (original) (raw)

Safety of Urban Transport Users During the Covid-19 Pandemic

European Research Studies Journal, 2020

Purpose: The article investigates issues related to the safety of transport users commuting in urbanized areas using buses, trams, subway, vehicle sharing systems, taxicabs, or ride-sourcing/ridesharing apps during the Covid-19 pandemic. Design/Methodology/Approach: The author surveyed city residents to identify their current transport safety-related preferences. Based on this survey results, the preferences identified were correlated with the actual measures undertaken by carriers to prevent virus transmission. Findings: A detailed analysis has revealed that the measures that have been implemented not always correspond with expectations of transport users or even with actual needs arising from the current epidemiological situation. Practical Implications: The analysis serves as a basis for evaluating the validity of guidelines and assessing the new safety standards developed by local authorities to protect the life and health of transport users. These standards could be maintained should subsequent waves of Covid-19 infections be experienced. They could also be implemented again if threats posed by other virus types need to be faced in the future. Originality/value: The author compared both expected and actually implemented solutions with their effectiveness parameters, based on experimental results and foreign literature.

Transmission of respiratory viruses when using public ground transport: A rapid review to inform public health recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic

South African medical journal = Suid-Afrikaanse tydskrif vir geneeskunde, 2020

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous countries worldwide declared national states of emergency and implemented interventions to minimise the risk of transmission among the public. Evidence was needed to inform strategies for limiting COVID-19 transmission on public transport. On 20 March 2020, we searched MEDLINE, CENTRAL, Web of Science and the World Health Organization's database of 'Global research on coronavirus disease (COVID-19)' to conduct a rapid review on interventions that reduce viral transmission on public ground transport. After screening 74 records, we identified 4 eligible studies. These studies suggest an increased risk of viral transmission with public transportation use that may be reduced with improved ventilation. International and national guidelines suggest the following strategies: keep the public informed, stay at home when sick, and minimise public transport use. Where use is unavoidable, environmental control, respiratory etiquette and...

SAfE transport: wearing face masks significantly reduces the spread of COVID-19 on trains

BMC Infectious Diseases

COVID-19 has had a substantial impact globally. It spreads readily, particularly in enclosed and crowded spaces, such as public transport carriages, yet there are limited studies on how this risk can be reduced. We developed a tool for exploring the potential impacts of mitigation strategies on public transport networks, called the Systems Analytics for Epidemiology in Transport (SAfE Transport). SAfE Transport combines an agent-based transit assignment model, a community-wide transmission model, and a transit disease spread model to support strategic and operational decision-making. For this simulated COVID-19 case study, the transit disease spread model incorporates both direct (person-to-person) and fomite (person-to-surface-to-person) transmission modes. We determine the probable impact of wearing face masks on trains over a seven day simulation horizon, showing substantial and statistically significant reductions in new cases when passenger mask wearing proportions are greater ...

Close contact behavior-based COVID-19 transmission and interventions in a subway system

Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2022

During COVID-19 pandemic, analysis on virus exposure and intervention efficiency in public transports based on real passenger’s close contact behaviors is critical to curb infectious disease transmission. A monitoring device was developed to gather a total of 145,821 close contact data in subways based on semi-supervision learning. A virus transmission model considering both short- and long-range inhalation and deposition was established to calculate the virus exposure. During rush-hour, short-range inhalation exposure is 3.2 times higher than deposition exposure and 7.5 times higher than long-range inhalation exposure of all passengers in the subway. The close contact rate was 56.1 % and the average interpersonal distance was 0.8 m. Face-to-back was the main pattern during close contact. Comparing with random distribution, if all passengers stand facing in the same direction, personal virus exposure through inhalation (deposition) can be reduced by 74.1 % (98.5 %). If the talk rate was decreased from 20 % to 5 %, the inhalation (deposition) exposure can be reduced by 69.3 % (73.8 %). In addition, we found that virus exposure could be reduced by 82.0 % if all passengers wear surgical masks. This study provides scientific support for COVID-19 prevention and control in subways based on real human close contact behaviors.Open in a separate window

Social Efficiency of Public Transportation Policy in Response to COVID-19: Model Development and Application to Intercity Buses in Seoul Metropolitan Area

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Although more than two years have passed since the appearance of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), few policies on public transportation have been implemented to reduce its spread. It is common knowledge that public transportation is vulnerable to COVID-19, but it has not been easy to formulate an appropriate public transportation policy based on a valid rationale. In this study, a modified SEIHR model was developed to evaluate the socioeconomic effects of public transportation policies. By applying the developed model to intercity buses in the Seoul metropolitan area, the socioeconomic efficiency of the policy of reducing the number of passengers was evaluated. The analysis showed that the optimal number of passengers decreased as the number of initially infected people increased; in addition, the basic reproduction number R0, illness cost per person, and probability of infection with a single virus were higher. However, depending on these variable conditions, the policy to ...

A study on the use of public transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic

E3S Web of Conferences, 2021

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public transportation occupancy has decreased significantly. In addition to the sluggish economy, the COVID-19 health protocol rules require that only 50 percent of passengers can be transported for public transportation. This study tries to identify the use of public transportation and the factors that influence this use during the adaptation period for the new habits of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on the frequency of using public transportation before and during the pandemic was processed with the index formula. Before the pandemic period, using public transportation was often, with an index value of 60.8%. During the pandemic period, 10.1% of respondents did not do activities outside the home. Respondents who moved outside their homes (89.9%) used private vehicles (88.3%) and 11.7% public transportation for their trips. The type of public transportation often used is online transportation (motorbike and car) by 62.1%. The frequency of use of public t...

Correlation between Air and Urban Travelling with New Confirmed Cases of COVID-19 A Case Study

2020

COVID-19 which has spread in Iran from February 19, 2020, has infected 202,584 people and killed 9,507 people until June 20, 2020. The immediate suggested solution to prevent the spread of this virus was to avoid traveling around. In this study, the correlation between traveling between cities with new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Iran is demonstrated. The data, used in the study, consisted of the daily inter-state traffic, air traffic data, and daily new COVID-19 confirmed cases. The data is used to train a regression model and voting was used to show the highest correlation between travels made between cities and new cases of COVID-19. Although the available data was very coarse and there was no detail of inner-city commute, an accuracy of 81% was achieved showing a positive correlation between the number of inter-state travels and the new cases of COVID-19. Consequently, the result suggests that one of the best ways to avoid the spread of the virus is limiting or eliminating tr...

Public Transport COVID-19-Safe: New Barriers and Policies to Implement Effective Countermeasures under User’s Safety Perspective

Sustainability, 2022

The COVID-19 emergency forced cities worldwide to adopt measures to restrict travel and implement new urban public transport solutions. The discontinuity and reduction of services made users recognize public transport systems as contamination vectors, and the decrease in the number of passengers can already be seen in several places. Thus, this study assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urban public transport. We used hybrid choice models (HCMs) to identify the new barriers and potential solutions to increase users’ perception of safety, considering preexistent perceptions of public transportation quality. We used data from an online survey with users of public transportation in a metropolitan area in southern Brazil. We identified that the main barriers to using public transport during virus transmission are related to the system characteristics that force constant interaction with other passengers. Crowded vehicles and crowded stops/stations were considered the most det...

Changes in Passengers’ Travel Behavior Due to COVID-19

Sustainability, 2021

The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 has changed the way people travel due to its highly contagious nature. In this study, changes in the travel behavior of passengers due to COVID-19 in the first half of 2020 were examined. To determine whether COVID-19 has affected the use of transportation by passengers, paired t-tests were conducted between the passenger volume of private vehicles in Seoul prior to and after the pandemic. Additionally, the passenger occupancy rate of different modes of transportation during the similar time periods were compared and analyzed to identify the changes in monthly usage rate for each mode. In the case of private vehicles and public bicycles, the usage rates have recovered or increased when compared to those of before the pandemic. Conversely, bus and rail passenger service rates have decreased from the previous year before the pandemic. Furthermore, it is found that existing bus and rail users have switched to the private auto mode due to COVID-19. Based on...

Public Transportation Strategy in Response to Covid-19

Journal of Social Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on public transportation worldwide. At the beginning of the pandemic, public transportation systems reduced their performance by 80-90% in major cities in China, Iran, and the United States, and by 70% in the UK, including a significant decline in Indonesia. Several studies have shown that public transportation contributes significantly to the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This study aims to review the use of public transportation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: A systematic review using the PRISMA guidelines was conducted on literature published between 2020-2023 with inclusion criteria of national and international research articles in English related to the title "Public Transportation Strategy in Response to COVID-19". The database sources used were Scopus, Google Scholar, and PubMed. Results: Based on the literature review, it is concluded that efforts to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission in public transp...