Main Article Content

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a large-scale disruption to countries worldwide particularly in road traffic changes and people mobility. To respond to this, a titanic amount of published studies had investigated those concerns. However, a study describing mitigation efforts relating to this pandemic in the transportation sector is scarce. On the other hand, the lack of coordination between transportation authorities, public transport operators, and passengers triggers complex issues including the accumulation of passengers at bus stations that potentially increase virus transmission. For this reason, this article intends to investigate and establish strategies for safe passenger transport. The finding of the article presented four basic strategies as follows: First, a coordinated response among stakeholders and government is needed to develop comprehensive policies. Second, coordinated demand management is required to maintain a balance between government policies and citizen demands. Third, provide health education on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to public transport crews. Fourth, protecting the passengers and maintaining trust in public transport services. Additionally, it is recommended to provide adequate infrastructure, perform regular check-ups (i.e. assessing body temperature before entering public transportation), provide up-to-date COVID-19 health alert, and implement health protocol. Also, when this pandemic is over, the use of fuel-based transportation needs to be reduced, especially for short trips. To optimize this strategy, the role of government and health authorities on the policy side is crucial. Also, a good response from public transport operators and passengers is the key to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic in the transportation area.

Keywords

COVID-19 Mitigation Traffic change Safety driving People mobility

Article Details

References

  1. J. Zhang, “Transport policymaking that accounts for COVID-19 and future public health threats: A PASS approach,” Transport policy, vol. 99, pp. 405–418, 2020.
  2. H. Amawi, G. I. Abu Deiab, A. A. A Aljabali, K. Dua, and M. M. Tambuwala, “COVID-19 pandemic: an overview of epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnostics and potential vaccines and therapeutics,” Therapeutic delivery, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 245–268, 2020.
  3. A. A. Manzela, S. M. Hanriot, L. Cabezas-Gómez, and J. R. Sodré, “Using engine exhaust gas as energy source for an absorption refrigeration system,” Applied energy, vol. 87, no. 4, pp. 1141–1148, 2010.
  4. S. Bandyopadhyay, “Public transport during pandemic,” Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, vol. 22, no. 9. Springer, pp. 1755–1756, 2020.
  5. D. M. Barbieri et al., “A survey dataset to evaluate the changes in mobility and transportation due to COVID-19 travel restrictions in Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, India, Iran, Italy, Norway, South Africa, United States,” Data in Brief, vol. 33, p. 106459, Oct. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.106459.
  6. A. Cartenì, L. Di Francesco, and M. Martino, “How mobility habits influenced the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic: Results from the Italian case study,” Science of the Total Environment, vol. 741, p. 140489, 2020.
  7. C. Musselwhite, E. Avineri, and Y. Susilo, “Editorial JTH 16–The Coronavirus Disease COVID-19 and implications for transport and health,” Journal of transport & health, vol. 16, p. 100853, 2020.
  8. World Health Organization, “Summary of probable SARS cases with onset of illness from 1 November 2002 to 31 July 2003,” 2015. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/summary-of-probable-sars-cases-with-onset-of-illness-from-1-november-2002-to-31-july-2003 (accessed May 18, 2021).
  9. A. A. Rabaan et al., “MERS-CoV: epidemiology, molecular dynamics, therapeutics, and future challenges,” Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 1–14, 2021.
  10. J. A. Al-Tawfiq, A. Zumla, and Z. A. Memish, “Travel implications of emerging coronaviruses: SARS and MERS-CoV,” Travel medicine and infectious disease, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 422–428, 2014.
  11. J. Huang, J. Y.-C. Teoh, S. H. Wong, and M. Wong, “The potential impact of previous exposure to SARS or MERS on control of the COVID-19 pandemic,” European journal of epidemiology, vol. 35, no. 11, pp. 1099–1103, 2020.
  12. Y.-C. Liu, R.-L. Kuo, and S.-R. Shih, “COVID-19: The first documented coronavirus pandemic in history,” Biomedical journal, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 328–333, 2020.
  13. M. Lotfi, M. R. Hamblin, and N. Rezaei, “COVID-19: Transmission, prevention, and potential therapeutic opportunities,” Clinica chimica acta, vol. 508, pp. 254–266, 2020.
  14. A. H. Mohseni, S. Taghinezhad-S, Z. Xu, and X. Fu, “Body fluids may contribute to human-to-human transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2: evidence and practical experience,” Chinese medicine, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 1–4, 2020.
  15. H. Ouassou et al., “The pathogenesis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): evaluation and prevention,” Journal of immunology research, vol. 2020, 2020.
  16. Y. R. Rastogi, A. Sharma, R. Nagraik, A. Aygün, and F. Şen, “The novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: Its evolution and transmission into humans causing global COVID-19 pandemic,” International journal of environmental science and technology : IJEST, pp. 1–8, May 2020, doi: 10.1007/s13762-020-02781-2.
  17. World Health Organization, “Weekly Operational Update on COVID-19 6 November 2020,” World Health Organization (WHO), 2020. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-update-on-covid-19---16-october-2020.
  18. E. S. Goudouris, “Laboratory diagnosis of COVID-19,” Jornal de pediatria, pp. S0021-7557(20)30199–6, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.jped.2020.08.001.
  19. M. C. Grant et al., “The prevalence of symptoms in 24,410 adults infected by the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19): A systematic review and meta-analysis of 148 studies from 9 countries,” PloS one, vol. 15, no. 6, p. e0234765, 2020.
  20. JHU, “Cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19,” Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), 2021. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html (accessed Apr. 16, 2021).
  21. JHU, “Trend of confirmed cases of COVID-19,” Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), 2022. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer (accessed Jan. 26, 2022).
  22. J. Baj et al., “COVID-19: specific and non-specific clinical manifestations and symptoms: the current state of knowledge,” Journal of clinical medicine, vol. 9, no. 6, p. 1753, 2020.
  23. A. Lovato, C. de Filippis, and G. Marioni, “Upper airway symptoms in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),” American journal of Otolaryngology, 2020.
  24. H. Zhang, Y.-S. Liao, J. Gong, J. Liu, X. Xia, and H. Zhang, “Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients with gastrointestinal symptoms: A report of 164 cases,” Digestive and Liver Disease, vol. 52, no. 10, pp. 1076–1079, 2020.
  25. Y. Song et al., “COVID-19 treatment: close to a cure? A rapid review of pharmacotherapies for the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2),” International journal of antimicrobial agents, vol. 56, no. 2, p. 106080, 2020.
  26. M. J. Ali et al., “Treatment options for COVID-19: a review,” Frontiers in medicine, p. 480, 2020.
  27. S. Bose et al., “Medical management of COVID-19: evidence and experience,” Journal of clinical medicine research, vol. 12, no. 6, p. 329, 2020.
  28. S. Lam, A. Lombardi, and A. Ouanounou, “COVID-19: A review of the proposed pharmacological treatments,” European journal of pharmacology, vol. 886, p. 173451, 2020.
  29. R. Araújo, J. D. Aranda-Martínez, and G. E. Aranda-Abreu, “Amantadine treatment for people with COVID-19,” Archives of Medical Research, vol. 51, no. 7, p. 739, 2020.
  30. M. Nicola et al., “Health policy and leadership models during the COVID-19 pandemic: A review,” International journal of surgery, vol. 81, pp. 122–129, 2020.
  31. A. Remuzzi and G. Remuzzi, “COVID-19 and Italy: what next?,” The lancet, vol. 395, no. 10231, pp. 1225–1228, 2020.
  32. L. Rosenbaum, “Facing Covid-19 in Italy — Ethics, Logistics, and Therapeutics on the Epidemic’s Front Line,” The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. March, pp. 1–3, 2020, doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2005492.
  33. R. Djalante et al., “Review and analysis of current responses to COVID-19 in Indonesia: Period of January to March 2020,” Progress in Disaster Science, vol. 6, p. 100091, 2020.
  34. S. Chen et al., “Fangcang shelter hospitals: a novel concept for responding to public health emergencies,” The Lancet, vol. 395, no. 10232, pp. 1305–1314, 2020.
  35. D. Lee and J. Lee, “Testing on the move: South Korea’s rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, vol. 5, p. 100111, 2020.
  36. S. Lee, “How South Korea is Managing Public Transportation under COVID-19,” Moviliblog: Transport and Mobility Idea for Latin America and The Caribbean, 2020. .
  37. A. U. M. Shah et al., “COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia: Actions taken by the Malaysian government,” International Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 97, pp. 108–116, 2020.
  38. T. Morse, K. Chidziwisano, D. Musoke, T. K. Beattie, and S. Mudaly, “Environmental health practitioners: a key cadre in the control of COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa,” BMJ Global Health, vol. 5, no. 7, p. e003314, 2020.
  39. A. Kavaliunas, P. Ocaya, J. Mumper, I. Lindfeldt, and M. Kyhlstedt, “Swedish policy analysis for Covid-19,” Health Policy and Technology, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 598–612, 2020.
  40. J. Desborough et al., “Australia’s national COVID-19 primary care response,” The Medical journal of Australia, vol. 213, no. 3, pp. 104-106.e1, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.5694/mja2.50693.
  41. A. A. Algaissi, N. K. Alharbi, M. Hassanain, and A. M. Hashem, “Preparedness and response to COVID-19 in Saudi Arabia: Building on MERS experience,” Journal of infection and public health, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 834–838, 2020.
  42. A. Cartenì, L. Di Francesco, and M. Martino, “The role of transport accessibility within the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic in Italy,” Safety science, vol. 133, p. 104999, 2021.
  43. D. S. Pawar, A. K. Yadav, N. Akolekar, and N. R. Velaga, “Impact of physical distancing due to novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) on daily travel for work during transition to lockdown,” Transportation research interdisciplinary perspectives, vol. 7, p. 100203, 2020.
  44. E. Mogaji, “Impact of COVID-19 on transportation in Lagos, Nigeria,” Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, vol. 6, p. 100154, 2020.
  45. I. Dickson, “Before and after COVID-19_ Europe’s traffic congestion mapped,” https://360.here.com/covid-19-impact-traffic-congestion, 2020. .
  46. S. Heisler, “Where and when local travel decreased from COVID-19 around the world,” Medium, 2020. .
  47. European Environment Agency, “Air quality and COVID-19,” European Air Quality Index, 2020. .
  48. C. Collins, “COVID-19 is cutting air pollution, but it will not slow climate change _ Science_Business,” SCIENCE BUSINESS, 2020. .
  49. UITP, “Management of COVID-19: Guidelines for Public Transport Operators,” Brussels: International Association of Public Transport, 2020. www.uitp.org.
  50. S. Ibold, N. Medimorec, A. Wagner, and J. Peruzzo, “The COVID-19 outbreak and implications to sustainable urban mobility – some observations,” Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI), 2020. .
  51. M. R. Gualano, G. Lo Moro, G. Voglino, F. Bert, and R. Siliquini, “Effects of Covid-19 lockdown on mental health and sleep disturbances in Italy,” International journal of environmental research and public health, vol. 17, no. 13, p. 4779, 2020.
  52. R. Rossi et al., “COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures impact on mental health among the general population in Italy,” Frontiers in psychiatry, p. 790, 2020.
  53. C. Wang et al., “A longitudinal study on the mental health of general population during the COVID-19 epidemic in China,” Brain, behavior, and immunity, vol. 87, pp. 40–48, 2020.
  54. L. Webb, “Covid‐19 lockdown: a perfect storm for older people’s mental health,” Journal of psychiatric and mental health nursing, 2020.
  55. C. Arndt et al., “Covid-19 lockdowns, income distribution, and food security: An analysis for South Africa,” Global food security, vol. 26, p. 100410, 2020.
  56. A. K. M. I. Bhuiyan, N. Sakib, A. H. Pakpour, M. D. Griffiths, and M. A. Mamun, “COVID-19-Related Suicides in Bangladesh Due to Lockdown and Economic Factors: Case Study Evidence from Media Reports,” International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 2020, doi: 10.1007/s11469-020-00307-y.
  57. S. Singh, R. Kumar, R. Panchal, and M. K. Tiwari, “Impact of COVID-19 on logistics systems and disruptions in food supply chain,” International Journal of Production Research, vol. 0, no. 0, pp. 1–16, 2020, doi: 10.1080/00207543.2020.1792000.
  58. S. Sangkham, “Face mask and medical waste disposal during the novel COVID-19 pandemic in Asia,” Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, vol. 2, p. 100052, 2020.
  59. O. O. Fadare and E. D. Okoffo, “Covid-19 face masks: A potential source of microplastic fibers in the environment,” The Science of the total environment, vol. 737, p. 140279, 2020.
  60. M. M. Rahman, M. Bodrud-Doza, M. D. Griffiths, and M. A. Mamun, “Biomedical waste amid COVID-19: perspectives from Bangladesh,” The Lancet. Global Health, vol. 8, no. 10, p. e1262, 2020.
  61. A. Tirachini and O. Cats, “COVID-19 and public transportation: Current assessment, prospects, and research needs,” Journal of Public Transportation, vol. 22, no. 1, p. 1, 2020.
  62. G. S. Murthy, “An automatic disinfection system for passenger luggage at airports and train/bus stations,” Transactions of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 295–298, 2020.
  63. M. Gołofit-Szymczak, R. L. Górny, A. Stobnicka-Kupiec, A. Ławniczek-Wałczyk, and M. Cyprowski, “Microbial Air Quality in Municipal Buses Before and After Disinfection of their Air-Conditioning Systems,” Journal of Ecological Engineering, vol. 20, no. 10, pp. 189–194, 2019.
  64. M. Setiyo and B. Waluyo, “Captain seat: Smart solution for physical distancing on buses during the covid-19 pandemic,” Automotive Experiences, pp. 1–4, 2021.