- [Instructor] For decades, cities have invested
in building up their public transit systems
and reducing the number of cars on the road.
Hundreds of millions of people,
flock to transit hubs around the world every day,
as they travel into work in the mornings
and go home at night, or at least they used to.
The Coronavirus pandemic has turned the daily commute
into a public health risk, from swiping a subway ticket
to touching a payment screen,
or squeezing onto a crowded train.
The way many of us used to travel,
now means risking exposure to a deadly virus.
- That's the perfect scenario for the virus
to be transmitted, because you've got
so many people packed in so closely,
the risk of infection is actually quite, quite considerable.
- [Instructor] To get people to commute again,
many transportation networks
are trying to make that journey safer.
In some cities, this has set off a race
to find different ways for people to move.
So we wanted to know, how was the pandemic
changing the way we commute?
A good place to start is with trains.
Before cities can start building out
their grand visions for the future,
they have to deal with the immediate issue
of social distancing and sanitization.
Mandatory masks, social distancing signs,
and one way walking systems, have all become new normals
in cities like London and Paris.
But the reality of reopening cities means that
some transit systems can get overwhelmed pretty easily.
And overcrowding makes social distancing
particularly difficult.
So many are focusing more on deep cleaning.
The MTA is testing a UV light system
to try and kill COVID-19.
- In rich countries, you can even talk about nanotechnology
to recover or cover the inside of buses or public transit
with surfaces that repel or kill the virus.
- [Instructor] In Hong Kong these robots are rolling
through trains spring disinfectants.
Some Beijing subway stations are using
a temperature screening system
to check for potential fevers,
while also using mobile reservations
to try and manage the flow of people.
And cleaners are using electrostatic sprayer packs
to clean trains in many places.
But measures like these can be expensive.
Professor Julio Davila researches cities
and transportation systems in Latin America,
the Middle East, Africa and Asia,
- Unless it gets sort of to this extent
that is affordable by Cities in the Global South,
I don't see that happening anytime soon.
- [Instructor] One way to make ride safer
is by not letting trains get too full.
And that means sacrificing some ticket sales,
which in turn means less money to operate those same trains.
- One thing that's clear is public transit systems
around the world are in very difficult financial situation.
- [Instructor] Unlike rail systems,
roads are a little easier to modify for public transit.
- One of the advantages we've got
with how you manage the road network,
is you can implement measures pretty quickly.
But if you're redesigning an underground tube station
is providing the extra capacity there is a,
is a tough one to do,
and they take many years to do.
- [Instructor] New York City is expanding its bus only lanes
to try and alleviate overcrowding.
The idea is that if buses have more space on the road,
they can increase service, which should make it easier
for riders to maintain social distance onboard.
- There's every possibility there's gonna be another
huge wave of infections, just because we are you know,
carrying the virus to different different places.
- [Instructor] Dr James Hildreth has spent
the last four decades researching viruses.
- If you refuse to wear masks, as far as I'm concerned,
you should not be allowed to use the surface
because not doing so puts others at risk.
- [Instructor] Shared surfaces and limited air circulation
pose a particularly big risk for bus drivers,
who are among the people
who don't have the choice to work from home.
After at least 33 London bus workers died from COVID-19,
the mayor temporarily had passengers enter the bus
from the middle doors to avoid contact with drivers.
Since then, the city said it's worked with researchers
to improve the protective screen
between the driver and passengers.
Now, some buses are running with limited capacity
and skipping stops when they hit that limit.
- I think it's inevitable with a mass transit system
that there will be times when social distancing
is very difficult to manage.
- What I tell my team and my family is that
we should all expect to be doing this
until the middle of next year.
- [Instructor] In the meantime,
some cities are looking for ways
to help people avoid public transit altogether.
- Local governments are now widening sidewalks
and taking space way from cars.
- We have been kind of reallocating road space
for pedestrians incrementally pre-pandemic,
but I think the the pandemic has given it greater urgency.
The worry I've got is that is because people
aren't using public transport, they're returning to cars.
So that's one of the reasons
why we're reallocating road space
for pedestrians and cyclists.
If I had unlimited money, I'll probably put more
into cycle hire really because I think
that's turned out to be really successful.
- [Instructor] London, Milan, Paris, Bogota, and Berlin
have all announced plans to expand cycling lanes.
And governments are encouraging people
to walk to work if they can.
Some have talked about limiting the need for people
to use public transit by building up local economies
with the 15 minute city.
It's an urban planning concept that puts people's
basic needs like food, parks, and schools,
all within a 15 minute Walking distance.
- How will the city function going forward?
Is it gonna flip to a kind of more local London,
or is it going to flip to more less people living in London?
You know, we don't know.
- [Instructor] Another idea to take pressure off
public transit systems, is to reevaluate
the way we work all together.
More companies are allowing employees to work from home.
And some transport authorities have suggested that
employers might be asked to stagger shift times
to avoid overloading trains at rush hour.
So what does this all mean for commuters?
- So one of the things we're thinking about is, yeah,
when this pandemic is over,
how do we get people back onto public transport
in a way that they feel safe?
- [Instructor] Public transit networks don't operate
under a global set of rules.
So it's ultimately down to each city and transit network
to decide how to move forward.
- And what it will do is is actually focus
the minds of transit authorities and local governments
to say, more than ever, we have to make sure that
the whole spectrum of users, the poor, the rich, the women,
the people with disabilities of different kinds,
have to feel safe about that.
That's a big challenge.
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