Considerations for the transportation of school aged children amid the Coronavirus pandemic

Abulhassan, Yousif; Davis, Gerard A.

doi:10.1016/j.trip.2020.100290

Cited by 13 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Regular and consistent measurement of ATS using standardized instruments would enable the identification of trends and allow for the comparison of school travel 72 The number of students riding buses may decrease as schools consider changes and reductions to standard busing to address COVID‐19 pandemic‐related health concerns (eg, increased distance between students on buses) 73 . This may be an opportunity to promote active school travel among those who shift from riding buses to and from school. …”

Section: Implications For School Health and Equitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of Active Transportation Among Safe Routes to School Participants in Arizona: Impacts of Distance and Income

Ross

2021

Journal of School Health

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BACKGROUND Active transportation to school (ATS) is a component of a whole school approach to health promotion among youth. METHODS Individual‐ and school‐level predictors of ATS were examined using data from parent surveys (N = 11,100) of students in grades 3‐8 attending 112 schools in Arizona (United States) administering Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs between 2007 and 2018. Multilevel logistic models were estimated to predict the likelihood of students using active (walking or biking) versus inactive travel (riding bus or car) to and from school, and across distance and school‐level income categories. RESULTS Student grade, parent education, asking permission to use ATS, perceived health and school support for ATS, distance, and school income were predictive of ATS. The impact of demographic factors persisted across distances of ½ mile or less and at low‐ and medium‐income schools but diminished as distance and income increased. Asking permission and perceived school support persisted across levels of distance and income, while perceiving ATS as healthy was significant only for distances under 1 mile. CONCLUSIONS SRTS programs should continue promoting health benefits and school support for ATS. SRTS may be particularly effective at low‐ and medium‐income schools and among families living within ½ mile distances.

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Section: Implications For School Health and Equitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of Active Transportation Among Safe Routes to School Participants in Arizona: Impacts of Distance and Income

Ross

2021

Journal of School Health

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“…In particular, our currently running web application allows mass transit operators with limited resources to run “what-if” analyses and/or develop seating charts that accounts for different/changing social distance requirements. This is especially important for school bus coordinators in the U.S., who often resort to manual methods for assigning pupils to bus schedules/routes [20] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, ignoring household grouping unnecessarily reduces the capacity of the vehicle by requiring physical distancing between individuals from the same household (i.e., the practice increases the inefficiency of the transit). Second, the above seating assignment models do not consider boarding order, which should complement an optimal seating assignment strategy to minimize the likelihood of spreading COVID-19 [17] – [20] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seat Assignments With Physical Distancing in Single-Destination Public Transit Settings

et al. 2021

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While the importance of physical (social) distancing in reducing the spread of COVID-19 has been welldocumented, implementing similar controls in public transit remains an open question. For instance, in the United States, guidance for maximum seating capacity in single-destination public transit settings, such as school buses, is only dependent on the physical distance between passengers. In our estimation, the available models/guidance are suboptimal/inefficient since they do not account for the possibility of passengers being from the same household. This paper discusses and addresses the aforementioned limitation through two types of physical distancing models. First, a mixed-integer programming model is used to assign passengers to seats based on the reported configuration of the vehicle and desired physical distancing requirement. In the second model, we present a heuristic that allows for household grouping. Through several illustrative scenarios, we show that seating assignments can be generated in near real-time, and the household grouping heuristic increases the capacity of the transit vehicles (e.g., airplanes, school buses, and trains) without increasing the risk of infection. A running application and its source code are available to the public to facilitate adoption and to encourage enhancements. INDEX TERMS Airplane boarding, COVID-19, mixed integer programming (MIP) model, operations research, prescriptive analytics, public transport, school bus seating.

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“…9 for an aerosol transmission experiment using animal models). A general call out has therefore been given to move or prefer activities outdoors, if possible, 10,11 together with the regular practice of other security measures such as frequent ventilation, 12 mask wearing or the practice of physical distancing. The goal of this report is to offer general guidelines and purpose novel designs to improve the ventilation and expulsion rate of aerosols emitted inside urban buses; in particular, these guidelines can be used in emergencies as the one we are currently living.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural Ventilation in Urban Buses: From Negative Pressure To Velocity-Driven Dispersion of Aerosols

Pichardo-Orta

Patiño-Luna

Vélez-Cordero

2022

Preprint

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In this report we analyze the air streams formed across the open windows (natural ventilation) of an urban bus model and the resulted dispersion of aerosols emitted in the passenger area. The methods include computational fluid dynamics simulations and three ways to characterize the dispersion of passive tracers: a continuous concentration-based model, a discrete random model and a parametric scalar based on the so-called mean age of air. We also conducted experiments using a 1:10 scale bus model and CO2 as a passive tracer to assess the ventilation characteristics. We found that dispersion and expulsion of aerosols is driven by a negative pressure field in the standard bus design equipped with lateral windows. Also, the average age of air is 6 minutes while the air streams promote aerosol accumulation at the front (driver’s area). To speed up the expulsion of aerosols and reduce their in-cabin accumulation, we proposed a bus bodywork prototype having a frontal intake of air. The expulsion of aerosols in this case is driven by a frontal velocity field while the average age of air is reduced to 50 seconds which manifests as an increase of the aerosols expulsion rate.

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Considerations for the transportation of school aged children amid the Coronavirus pandemic

Cited by 13 publications

References 19 publications

Predictors of Active Transportation Among Safe Routes to School Participants in Arizona: Impacts of Distance and Income

Predictors of Active Transportation Among Safe Routes to School Participants in Arizona: Impacts of Distance and Income

Seat Assignments With Physical Distancing in Single-Destination Public Transit Settings

Natural Ventilation in Urban Buses: From Negative Pressure To Velocity-Driven Dispersion of Aerosols

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