COVID-Adaptation Scenarios: TRANSIT INDUSTRY

June 26, 2020 by David Nitkin | Categories: Scenario Development and Testing | Tags: mobility

The Issue

The current impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been felt by all of us. Ghost-like cities with deserted metro cars and empty buses in March through May reflect how COVID-19 has affected society worldwide. With travel bans, shopping centers empty, social gatherings prohibited, and many individuals quarantined or simply afraid to go out⁠—the disruptions to normal life are considerable. One of the most impacted sectors is, of course, urban transportation—which encompasses urban and inter-urban buses, trains and streetcars as well as taxis, ride-hailing providers, carpools and bicycle rentals.

This blog reports on ongoing results from Scenario Development and Testing discussions that look at three elements of urban transportation.

What challenges does the industry face in defining the new normal?
What is the likely future and sustainability of the sector after the end of the infection, including likely long term adaptations?
What principles will guide its future?

The Impacts of COVID

Public transport systems are essential for daily mobility but vulnerable to disease outbreaks and natural disasters. They are a high health and safety risk in the context of COVID-19 because of:

high numbers of people in a confined space with limited ventilation;
no access (entry) control to identify potentially sick persons;
private employer work schedules which put peak loads on available rolling stock;
limits to systems integration with various other modes such as airports and trucking;
a large variety of common infection-vulnerable surfaces to touch (ticket machines, handrails, door knobs, etc.).

As a high risk, public health transport choice, these systems can take steps to try to prevent the spread of the virus but the known unknowns of infection and recovery are formidable. The impacts of COVID include:

Worldwide public transport patronage has rapidly and sharply declined. Some European countries have advised residents against taking public transport unless it’s absolutely necessary.
In China, even more drastic measures were applied during the height of the epidemic where due to travel restrictions, public transport use virtually collapsed.
In March-May 2020, many Canadian and American cities experienced ridership declines of 60-90 per cent and economic activity down 40-70 per cent.
In some countries, entire services are already closed.
Uber and Lyft have suspended pool rides in the US and Canada, and ride-hailing service, GrabShare, has taken this even further, suspending its services in certain areas of the Philippines until the public-health situation de-escalates.
There has been a dramatic increase in biking with several large cities’ bike-share program seeing a 50 or more percent usage increase in March – May 2020 compared to the previous year. Cities in China report a 40% shift from public transit to private cars, taxis and ride-hailing, walking and biking.

It’s unlikely that the coronavirus will be completely eradicated in the near future. This means the need for simultaneously planning short and long term. Specifically:

(a) take extra immediate precautions to protect public safety and establish trust;
(b) anticipate new legislative mobility rules;
(c) collaborate and learn from other systems operators;
(d) expand operational scenarios to deal with sustainable strategic future choices; and
(e) even when ‘business as usual’ gradually resumes, look ahead, when social distancing is behind us, to lessen the impact of any future novel contagions.

Because infection transmission rates are higher in crowded spaces, a busy bus or crammed subway car seems a likely breeding ground for the virus to spread. According to industry thought leaders, there are a number of proactive responses that operators can do to reduce transmission, such as:

Require frontline personnel to be equipped with protective materials such as masks, goggles and suits, and train them to prevent cross-infection between staff and vehicles.
Enhance rigorous daily disinfection programs to properly sterilize vehicles and rolling stock. Leaders in this area include Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and China.
Mandate masks and hand washing for riders.
Enhance regular testing of drivers, cleaners, service staff and operators.
Keep the public and equipment spaces clean.
Stress the need for traveling individuals to take measures such as
- (a) avoiding travel completely if they are unwell,
- (b) maintain a two-meter distance from other passengers at all times, and
- (c) use low-contact, on-line (rather than cash) payment choices.
Invest in ultraviolet light disinfection chambers to destroy germs on buses.
Use personal-health data and screening apps to screen and deny access to infected persons or asymptomatic carriers. Leaders include China and Taiwan.

Industry Experts Forecasts:

It’s unlikely that coronavirus will be completely eradicated in the near future. This means that extra precautions against the spread will remain a high priority, even if and when ‘business as usual’ gradually resumes. Looking ahead, attention will be given to lessen the impact of this and any future novel contagions.

While industry insiders and experts focus on personal hygiene and sanitizing fleets, reducing contact and social distancing is also imperative to minimize risks. Some of these forecasts or recommendations can be quickly and easily implemented if you have the right technology systems in place.

1. Use technology to protect public transit from disease outbreaks: If you are operating in crisis management mode, it is likely that you will have set up an emergency operation team. Tasked with managing your response to the situation, the team will need to make the right decisions, quickly. This could and should be around controlling passenger flow, adapting services, customer communication and revenue protection.

2. Manage operations and controlling demand: Fleet operations undoubtedly need to change. Bus operations should match changes in demand or be used to discourage unnecessary travel in accordance with government directives. This could involve controlling departures and reducing bus dispatch frequencies, as well as adjusting branch, peak and night routes and suspending inter-city bus services. You may also face the challenge of providing services with a limited workforce due to absence.

3. Integrate transit management systems: Real-time monitoring and management of your public transport fleet operations become crucial. Automatic vehicle location (AVL) with a transit management system gives you city-wide visibility and control over every aspect of your operations. You can simulate resource, fleet, route and schedule adjustments, then quickly implement any changes. With an integrated transit management and passenger information system, any service adjustments can be automatically updated in your journey planning apps and passenger information displays. These systems also increase performance and operational efficiency, enabling transport providers to deliver better services with fewer resources.

4. Manage passenger flow and decreasing waiting times: Operators can support social distancing measures by avoiding crowds gathering at bus stations, terminals and stops. Accurate real-time passenger information enables travelers to plan their trip in advance and time their arrival so that they do not take any unnecessary risks. When providing to-the-minute service times, it’s important that real-time GTFS feeds use an ETA prediction engine with corrective algorithms for truly accurate arrivals.

5. Invest further in mobile apps: Mobile apps can be customized and used to :

(a) control passenger flow,
(b) provide notifications on mobility choices; and
(c) introduce measures to stagger ridership. Passenger counting devices and cameras can be installed in vehicles can be integrated with the transit management system, so you can keep track of 50% passenger load restrictions that have been implemented in some cities. This data can be instantly delivered to passengers on-the-go via your mobile journey planning app, along with a wide range of other service information.

6. Provide regular and informative passenger communications: Effective communication in advance or in real time with passengers during these times is vital to:

(a) maintain public confidence in transport services;
(b)allow efficient operator decision-making; and
(c) deal with the situation with as much accountability and transparency as possible.

Authorities have a duty of care to share all potentially valuable information and news, as well as standards of conduct to reduce any risk associated with travel. There will also be service changes and restrictions.

Operators can keep their passengers fully informed, simultaneously and consistently across a wide range of channels with a passenger information system. This includes:

Before travel through the website and mobile apps
At the start of the journey with screens at stations
Solar powered digital bus stops
During the journey on displays in the buses.

7. Avoid cash handling with contactless payments: A quick Google search on cash handling and the coronavirus paints the picture as to why transport workers have voiced their concerns around cash handling, and why many operators have enforced contactless payment only, where possible. Aside from the wider benefits of contactless ticketing and automatic fare payment systems, it immediately removes the need for cash to change hands. It also eliminates any contact between passengers and ticket kiosks, drivers or ticket inspectors. Ticketing apps could also be used to control passenger flow, by introducing measures to stagger ridership.

Contactless ticketing comes in the form of:

Mobile ticketing
EMV contactless payment
Smartcards

8. Enhance operational resilience with modern cloud-based systems: Advances in technology have enabled the public transport sector to operate more fully in a dynamic digital world. Various cloud-based transit platforms, which offer greater resilience by enabling workplace mobility, are accessible from any internet-connected device, which means controllers and dispatchers can still run the transport system without being physically present on the company premises.

Several software options give operators the flexibility to introduce new tools and scale with pay-as-you-grow subscription packages. No longer does it take a year to implement a new tool but weeks or at most months. They offer leading-edge capabilities as well as analytics, enabling operators to learn and adjust their models almost in real-time. These ‘transit systems as a service’ offer the fastest, most flexible path to implementing advanced transit management capabilities.

Ethical Approaches to Selecting Solutions

Authorities have an ethical duty of care to:

(a) protect the public and staff;
(b) co-operate with health and emergency preparedness officials;
(c) share all potentially valuable information and news, and
(d) eliminate or reduce any risk associated with travel.

EthicScan has had success in using a triangle decision-making to help businesses and utilities evaluate these prospective response choices. See below. The lesson is to identify, create and choose decisions that are as high up the triangle as possible.

EthicScan: Ethical Decision-Making – Harm Triangle

Here are a variety of the many mitigation and adaptation actions identified by industry experts that fall within the Harm Triangle. Many are drawn from analysts examining China’s public adaptation to COVID:

Minimize Harm	Do No Harm	Do Good
Schedule operations to match changes in demand	Use scheduled operations to discourage unnecessary travel	Set up a strategy team separate from the operational team
Adapt fleet services levels to accord with government directives	Communicate health conscious choices for patrons/customers and their families	Recognize and reward essential workers
Control departures and reduce bus dispatch frequencies	Keep staff away from unnecessary risk of contagion	Suspend inter-city bus services
Adjust branch, peak and night routes	Invest in proactive disinfectant sanitation programs	Provide trauma counselling for front line service staff
Automatically update and digitally communicate 24/7 your journey planning apps and passenger information displays	Revise scheduling to deal with absentee staff, including what to do when one member of a team is sick	Give passengers and businesses real time predictive information so that they plan in advance and help stay safe
Avoid adding traffic to crowds gathering at bus stations, terminals and stops	Simulate resource, fleet, route and schedule adjustments, then quickly implement obvious improvement changes	Insist on the use of contactless (minimal inter-personal contact) payment options
Use passenger counting devices and cameras to deliver 50% passenger load restrictions when and as needed	Introduce measures that help stagger travel peak time and ridership levels	Invest in low contact ticketing systems (smartcards or mobile ticketing)
Implement and train staff on advanced transit management capabilities	Support remote work by controllers and dispatchers so the system still runs	Work with larger employers, airports and destination venues to better stagger traffic
Disinfect buses at least twice a day (once before leaving the depot and once after returning) and more in higher risk key areas	Implement physical spacing guidelines to ensure safe distances between passengers	Check passengers’ temperatures and insist on them wearing masks before boarding
Invest in bike sharing as a reliable, low-carbon mobility mode	Make vehicle occupancy information available to the public to enhance travel route and time options	Introduce new, on-demand shuttle bus lines in order to help essential workers get to their jobs

Scenario Development and Testing: Alternatives

In this industry, the use of operational scenarios is rather common. Often though, they are mitigation-planning-themed tools, not sustainability-themed strategic ones. By contrast, strategic ones are adaptation-themed and continuously transformative. Operators are encouraged to seek outside help to provide divergent perspectives and choices needed to enhance adaptation scenarios. Here are suggestions of team building suggestions and requirements:

	Little Change	Significant Change	Pandemic proof
Implementation	SCENARIO ONE	SCENARIO TWO	SCENARIO THREE
Team	Executives	Outside consultants	A multi-stakeholder team
Theme	Mitigation	Adaptation	Transformation
Expected Outcomes	Enhance ridership. Efficiency	Enhance mobility choices and alternatives	Bullet-proof the system against any natural disaster
Communications	One time exercise	Three forecast time horizons	One time forecast with annual reviews and updates of changes
Engagement of Staff	Minimal	More essential	Required

Conclusion

For urban transportation, the simultaneous short- and long-term choices that might be taken to deal with COVID depend on leadership, the type of service and the current situation in that location. It is currently impossible to predict how natural events will fully unfold. We may face a succession of waves of infection before there is a cure, or everyone is infected, or the virus exhausts itself. Operators cannot wait until the next or subsequent waves to hit in order to stop trying to implement adaptations to help safeguard and serve passengers of the future.

Further Resources

HEREmobility – How is Urban Transportation Impacted by COVID-19?:
https://blog.mobility.here.com/coronavirus-covid-19-impacts-urban-transportation

Traffic Technology Today – Making public transit more resilient to future pandemics:
https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/features/making-public-transit-more-resilient-to-future-pandemics.html

Reason Foundation – Surface Transportation News: Infrastructure Stimulus Bill, Highway Investment and COVID-19:
https://reason.org/transportation-news/infrastructure-stimulus-bill-highway-investment-and-covid-19/

Canadian Urban Transit Association – COVID-19 Resources:
https://cutaactu.ca/en/covid-19

CUTA has established a blog series on ‘Tackling COVID-19’. See the first submission from Trapeze Group How transit agencies are pivoting services during COVID-19 – Trapeze Group

WSP White Paper – COVID-19 & PUBLIC TRANSPORT: FROM RESPONSE TO RECOVERY:
https://www.wsp.com/en-CA/insights/covid-19-and-public-transport-from-response-to-recovery

The Toronto Sun – Colle: Building Transit After Covid-19:
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/colle-building-transit-after-covid-19

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/transit-commute-coronavirus-267920
The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) has prepared this guidance for public transit operators operating in the context of COVID-19.

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David Nitkin

David Nitkin, founder of EthicScan, is a full-time organizational ethicist. David’s original writing, teaching, consulting and research focuses upon ethical decision making; enhancing corporate accountability and reporting; and developing corporate ethics assurance programs, including transparency, risk management, integrity management, and safe partnering.

David has provided ethics training, advice and research for over 200 clients both internationally and in Canada who collectively employ over 750,000 employees. He consults and trains widely with a variety of clients, including corporations, industry associations, public service sector organizations (integrity commissions, human rights commissions, and anti-corruption tribunals social agencies, professional ethics certification organizations, not-for-profits; and civil society organizations.