Slowing the spread of COVID-19: Review of “Social distancing” interventions deployed by public transit in the United States and Canada

Abstract

This paper presents a review of social distancing measures deployed by transit agencies in the United States and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses how specific operators across the two countries have implemented changes. Challenges and impacts on their operations are also provided. Social distancing is one of the community mitigation measures traditionally implemented during influenza pandemics and the novel coronavirus pandemic. Research has shown that social distancing is effective in containing the spread of disease. This is applicable to the current situation with the novel coronavirus, given the lack of effective vaccines and treatments in the United States and Canada in the first eight months of the pandemic. Moreover, social distancing is particularly useful in settings where community transmission is substantial. Directives for social distancing were issued in several states and public transit operators were charged with how to provide for physical distance of six feet between passengers on their property including physical infrastructure such as station buildings and rolling infrastructure (rolling stock) including trains, subway cars and buses. Operational changes were also required due to physical distancing, e.g. adding train cars to provide for opportunities to physically distance on the train. Examples of some measures discussed in this research includes taping off every other seat on buses, increasing the total length of trains by adding cars, separating bus drivers from passengers with plastic sheeting, rear door boarding, etc. This research also analyzes long-term impacts for transit operators and challenges to encourage passengers to return to public transit after lockdown requirements ordered by government officials are lifted. A section on the policies that are being explored by government to continue to sustain public transportation is also included.

COVID-19, the Built Environment, and Health

“…In some systems, ridership fell by more than 90% (Aloi et al 2020;Liu et al 2020;Olin 2020). Initially, some cities began running buses and trains at higher frequency while restricting the number of passengers on board (Kamga and Eickemeyer 2021). Some cities made transit riding free.…”

Integrating COVID-19 health risks into crowding costs for transit schedule planning

“…Although the evidence that reveals the significance of crowding induced health risks for transit riders in determining transit attractiveness post-COVID-19, there are no studies that investigate the effects of crowding induced health risks in transit scheduling. Consequently, some transit agencies have adopted the physical distancing measures recommended by health professionals to curb the spread; these measures mean that there is a specific maximum level of crowding allowed in transit vehicles ( Kamga and Eickemeyer 2021 ). Nevertheless, different people can view this same level of crowding as having different levels of risk, which will affect transit demand.…”

SAFE Transport: Wearing Face Masks Significantly Reduces The Spread of COVID-19 On Trains

“…There are various non-pharmaceutical measures that can be applied to increase safety on public transport. These include, but are not limited to: introduction of more thorough and more frequent cleaning of the rolling stock, protecting the drivers and public transport operators with personal protective equipment (PPE), mandating wearing face masks by passengers, marking seats and standing spaces to maintain physical distances, forbidding front-door boarding to protect the drivers and encouraging boarding through other doors (particularly on buses [30]), lowering the maximum occupancy limits, encouraging hand sanitation, and shutting down stations shown to be hot-spots.…”

“…For researchers, the challenge is to show that these measures can be effective at reducing the spread of COVID-19 on public transport networks. Indeed there has been research that shows the survival time of the virus on different surfaces [8], the effectiveness of cleaning [34,35], hand sanitation [32,33], and lowering maximum occupancy limits [29,30,31].…”