TITLE:
Risk of COVID-19 Spread and Mitigation Strategies in Public Transportation Sector
AUTHORS:
Niloy Saha, Mohiuddin Quadir, Ranjit P. Godavarthy
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Public Transit, Engineering Solution, Advance material Science
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.11 No.4,
August
27,
2021
ABSTRACT: The world is trying to recover from once in the COVID-19 pandemic, which
has a higher mortality rate than the common flu. However, the threat of
different variants is still affecting us in a different capacity. Several
preventive measures have been adopted across the nation and the globe to avoid
the spread of this virus, such as lockdown,
restricted travel, social distancing guidelines, obligatory face mask use, etc. These activities directly influenced
the management of social life,
economy, and livelihoods. The effect of COVID-19 on the public transit
industry and strategies the transit agencies adapted to continue providing the
service during the pandemic has been synthesized in this paper. As a result of the pandemic, public transit
ridership decreased by about 70 percent for most agencies compared to
pre-pandemic levels. This article also highlights the prevention of COVID-19
spread in the public transit industry using engineering solutions and advanced
material science and nanotechnology solutions.