COVID-19 Special Feature

There are three major reasons that transport planners have to step up and make an impact both for the short and long term, as follows.
 

1.   People are still travelling – some out of necessity.

Despite television news reports carefully positioning their reporters in deserted streets, the reality is that there is still a reasonable amount of travel going on.  There is essential travel: emergency workers, deliveries, trips to the doctors etc.  There may be still far too many discretionary trips.

Whether they are essential or discretionary we have to strive to reduce the risk.

To talk about what we could do on public transport we spoke to Yale Wong from Sydney University. 

2.   We have a lot to learn from the experience 

Much of our work in recent years has focused on maximising efficiencies when most things are going to plan.  To reduce costs, we have reduced skills in some areas and focused on the cheapest solutions.  Furthermore, we have become somewhat risk averse with traditional and social media highlighting any minor or perceived disruption to the current situation.  

As we are forced to make changes to how we provide services and manage the systems, we can learn and implement on-going benefits.

To discuss this, we spoke to Wendy Adam, Transport planner. 

3.   Things will change after we get on top of Coronavirus

The major changes to which we are having to adopt in the short term, will introduce many people to travel (or non-travel) options they might not have normally considered: Working in part or wholly from home; travelling in the off peak; and having groceries and other items delivered to our door.  Each of these has been theorised about in the past.  Unfortunately, there has not been as much behavioural change in working from home or travelling in the off-peak as we might have hoped.  But on-line shopping with home delivery has been recognised as a major trend.

None of these trends comes without side effects, those unintended and/or unforeseen consequences.  Parcel deliveries, for example, could swamp the system, including the footpaths.

To keep our finger on the pulse of change, we need good information. Our data collection and management processes have not always received the respect they deserve.  John Reid from Austraffic has written an article with some history and comments on how the current pandemic should make us review what we are collecting and what we are doing with our data.

Some summary points from the two interviews and articles are given below.

Making public transport as safe as we can

The main message to combat the Coronavirus is that we must be fully committed to our own personal actions such as limiting travel and washing hands. But some people will still have to travel. Is there still a role for public transport? And if so, what are or should the public transport service providers be doing?

Yale Wong is a research at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney.

Key Points from the interview

Should we shut down public transport? 

1.     While they discouraged discretionary travel, China did not shut down its public transport network except initially in Wuhan and in some areas where buses were deployed to specifically carry health workers.  A service in Wuhan has now been restored.

2.     Australia has driven down the cost of public transport which provides a different service to the gold-plated ones you see in Europe and the labour-intensive ones you see in Asia.

Specific actions on buses and trains 

1. In China and other areas sanitising has gone from a sweep of the bus at night to full sanitised efforts (with workers in protective gear) at the end of each trip
2. Mechanised cleaning is being looked at, not only for buses and carriages, but also for stations and bus stops. Some areas are looking at or starting systems such as Shanghai with UV sanitation methods and Hong Kong with robotic train carriage cleaners.
3. In China there is a directive for only one person per seat thus reducing the capacity by at least 50%.
4. Keeping a social distance (Yale’s preference is for the expression “Physical distancing”) is policed with CCTV and in some places where people are queuing there are marks on the ground to indicate the distance you should keep apart.
5. Ventilation is very important. Public transport spaces are confined spaces that are often poorly ventilated.  In Hong Kong some opening windows have been retrofitted onto buses.  More frequent changing of air filters might be one action we can take in Australia.

Protecting the bus drivers

1. Bus drivers are often in the higher risk groups with high average ages, and a job that does not give a lot of incidental exercise that would enhance their fitness levels.
2. Providing masks is not an option we have pushed hard for.
3. Making passengers board and alight through the middle door.
4. Stop people sitting in the row of seats immediately behind the driver.
5. Stop cash payments.
6. In Australia the Unions have spoken strongly about this issue.

Vehicle design 

1. “I think it's very likely we'll see specifications that are linked to what has occurred in the Corona virus outbreaks”.
2. The length of time the Coronavirus lingers depends very much on the nature of the surface.  In the air it is about three hours.  On stainless steel and plastics, the kind of materials that are commonly used on hand rails it can be two to three days. “In places like Hong Kong they're not stainless steel, they're all covered in some sort of material”.  This raises issues about sanitation from other bugs and diseases.

Have we created a situation that is poorly placed to cope with the unexpected?

1. “Well, that is that's a fairly loaded question. I'm quite wary to make too much of a judgement on this issue”
2. “I think changing away from just a pure focus on cost efficiency to a more triple bottom line, focussed on things like quality and other aspects that are really important”

The full interview with Yale can be heard at: http://drivenmedia.com.au/wp/coronavirus-what-is-happen-with-public-transport-around-the-world-for-essential-trips/

What can fixing some immediate problems teach us for the future?

How the transport industry must cope with the coronavirus is often seen in very one-dimensional steps: Travel less; keep your distance. But there are many factors that interplay in the services we provide and the way the public uses them. It might seem simple, until there is a catastrophe. 

But if we are forced into looking at traffic and transport issues for this event what can it teach us about how we manage in the “typical” situation?

We spoke to Wendy Adam who has a long career in transport, planning, and management and has given much to the industry, including being AITPM branch president in New South Wales and Queensland.

Key Points for the interview 

What can we learn from past events?

1. “Like all sort of logistics exercises, that supply chain of work can be extremely important. For example, when I was working at State Transit quite a few years ago, where we had the biggest bushfire threat to Sydney. And at that stage, the government used the transport as a logistic exercise to get firefighters to rest and relieve troops and things like that”.

We often develop solutions that balance conditions out in the end, which work until some significant changes occur.

1. Bus drivers are typically paid low wages during the normal week but they make it up by doing overtime for big events on the weekend.  Now those big events are not being held, drivers are left in a difficult situation.

Do we consider the benefits of coping with new situations in project evaluation?

1. There are many advantages of the Opal Card (in NSW, or the Myki card in Victoria) especially now that we do not want to have cash transactions because of the spread of disease.  This was not considered when they were implemented but are now a great benefit.
2. Opal card also makes it much easier for drivers to clock in and out each day. More time to sanitise the vehicle?

What can we learn from the short-term solutions to the pandemic?

1. If we look at queuing in order to keep spatial distance we might learn things about efficiency and management.  Often, at the moment, it is a free for all.
2. Requiring only one person per seat on a bus emphasises that it is not only important to have a bus timetabled to arrive but also to have information about availability of seats.  We are still not given available capacity information.  On trains this might include which carriages have seats because we often fill up the middle carriages rather than the far ends of the trains.

Freight issues

1. Wendy had heard a story that some people were now following large trucks to shopping centres in the hope of being the first in line to get the toilet paper and hand sanitisers that the trucks they were probably delivering!
2. Time of day restrictions on truck deliveries are likely to be relaxed.  The industry would be happy to travel in non-peak times although this raises issues of noise to communities.  (One thing this might push us to is electric or hybrid trucks!).  This could also lead to more pop-up distribution centres where the final part of the trip to deliver to shops is not done by a big truck.
3. Parcel and goods deliveries to your home: We might learn from the situation in America where companies such as UPS do very large business and have committed a lot of resources to determining how to do so in a most efficient manner. 

Does it take a catastrophe to bring about big changes?

1. Wendy said “We are all guilty of complacency and that's actually rational. If the situation doesn't change why should we? But this has created an opportunity for a lot of these things to happen”. 
2. Will the pandemic help us address change? ”I think that it will help a lot. I've heard people with a certain amount of panic and precautionary principle saying we need to shut this down; we need to do this because I don't need this service. But getting the pushback and hearing why this is still important to people and getting people to defend and say, no, we can do this better, teaches us all a lot of lessons. That sort of re-examination, I hope people will take forward because some of what we learned there will be very instructive for better operations in the future”.

The full interview can be heard at: 

http://drivenmedia.com.au/wp/what-practical-transport-things-can-we-learn-from-the-coronavirus-pandemic-from-queuing-to-trucks/
 

How will the Coronavirus change transport into the future?

John Reid, Austraffic 

What can we learn about transport from the disruption caused by the Coronavirus? 

The answer to that question, in most part, depends on what we will measure.

There will be an abundance of opinions as to what the effects of the epidemic will be, especially in the short-term, but what about in the long term with changes that will occur because people were forced into different decisions and patterns.

What will be the transport legacies and how should we react to them?  We will only get the full picture if we collect data and efficiently analyse it.  We cannot guarantee we will collect all the right data but we need to think carefully, now, so we are well placed to see immediate and long-term changes in travel patterns.

Collective Amnesia

“In Australia, when it comes to epidemic disease, we have a collective amnesia. The terrifying epidemics that have swept through Australia in the past – diseases such as smallpox and plague, tuberculosis and polio, childhood killers such as whooping cough and diphtheria – are not only outside the experience of most people, but the events themselves appear to have been erased from our cultural memory” (1)

Understanding the past needs to be more than general memory.  If it is sketchy and only anecdotal, we are likely to be dominated by rumour and myth.  Media headlines and political statements may still abound but there may be a dearth of facts that help us dig down into the real problems and the effective solutions.

How data has helped get to the real issues

The first case of cholera was reported in England in 1831. Between 1831 and 1854 tens of thousands of people died from the disease.  The popular belief of the time that cholera was spread through the air.  It was caused by breathing vapours or a “miasma in the atmosphere”.  This seemed reasonable at the time and indeed probably passed the “pub test”.

In 1849 Dr John Snow suggested otherwise.  He published a paper concluding it was water borne.  But acceptance of this did not come until 1854.  In that year a major outbreak occurred in Soho.  Dr Snow tracked down information from hospital and public records on when the outbreak began and whether the victims drank water from the Broad Street pump. The authorities were hesitant to act and did so only as a trial of removing the pump handle.  Dr Snow was proved right.  (2)

Without good information and an analysis that correlated the deaths to the source of water, how much longer might it have taken to convince the authorities.

The need for data for longitudinal analysis 

For the Coronavirus we need to understand some short-term issues such as what surfaces hold the virus for a long time: petrol pumps, metal hand rails etc.  But we also need to collect data for long-term analysis.

When discussing mental health, which we have become far more aware of, or at least more prepared to talk about it, Professor Helen Christiansen said:

“My reading of it is that it's not getting worse, though we don't have very good data sets. So we've only really done proper population data collection over two occasions the last time was in 2008”. (3)

Transport needs to look closely at what we collect.  In the early 1980s Sydney conducted its first household survey.  This is an expensive way to collect a relatively small sample.  But it is critical to understand the reasoning that leads people to make transport decisions.  Transport is a derived activity yet we understand little if we only measure traffic volumes at selected locations. 

It might be argued that the Coronavirus means we aren’t traveling so what’s the point.  In an article in the December 2017 AITPM newsletter I talked about the need to understand what are the reasons people are not travelling.  It arose after the first Fiji household survey showed many people stayed at home.  We cannot predict the future unless we know the reasons why people are or are not travelling.  We all support the idea of autonomous vehicles to help those with a disability.  So how many extra trips will be made?  Your guess is as good as mine, but data can help remove the guess work. 

Transport legacies 

The Olympic Games is one example of an event that we are meant to get some long-term benefits from.  It is not just construction projects.  I was told that of all the people who would use the train to get to the Atlanta Games in 1996, only 3% had caught a train in the past.  It became important then to give them a quality service so that they might consider doing more non-car trips in the future.

In Sydney the infrastructure we built for the 2000 games was probably not as important as people enjoying bus services on 10-minute headway.

For the Coronavirus the big issue could be parcel and goods deliveries.  Some people have already been early adopters of home delivery services but others will be forced to try it and might like what they get.  There has been a lot of discussion about autonomous parcel deliveries in terms of safety but might our recent experience highlight the issue of capacity on our footpaths.

Who owns the data?

Data ownership: who really owns the data that surveyors like Austraffic collect? There is currently a plethora of surveyors and consultants that are streaming data, in most cases underwritten by a Government agency or client. If you are reading this and you work for a government or contractor will you be happy to see your data collector streaming and or selling your data?

Now is not the moment to prostitute our laws on IP preservation and sell our ethics down the drain. Austraffic does not trade in client owned data, we at Austraffic respect our client and their rights.  There is an opportunity for owners to make the data widely available but we must engage with them rather than ride roughshod over their ownership rights.

If data retention by the owner/purchaser is no longer relevant to today’s business then government at all levels (State, LGA and infrastructure projects alike) need to make this clear and allow a level playing field.  The current inaction on data ownership encourages unlimited on-selling of data paid for by the community/tax payer.  On many occasions this will result in the community/tax payer paying for the same data on multiple occasions as its distribution and fees levied are uncontrolled.  

Conclusions

It is not just how we are travelling that is important, it is “why”. When we are faced with a huge disruption such as the Coronavirus it makes us re-evaluate and adapt to the different conditions.  What does this mean for the future?  With good data collection, analysis and management of the information we collect, we will maximise the services that we can provide to the community.

This is the first of a regular series of blogs about issues in data collection, analysis and storag that will appear at “Anything but Average” on the Austraffic web site.

References 

This article will be part of an on-going series soon to appear on the “Anything but Average” web page (www.austraffic.com.au).

1.    Ian Townsend “Learning from forgotten epidemics”: by  https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/learning-from-forgotten-epidemics/ (date not listed but assumed to be Aug 2007)

2.     John Snow and the Broad Street pump – on the trail of an epidemic https://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/snowcricketarticle.html

3.     Future Tense “Depression, anxiety and social media”: ABC radio program (Sun 17 Nov 2019)  and podcast (https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/depression,-anxiety-and-social-media/11655632) 
 

Draft Manuscript - The crisis at stations with the Spanish influenza epidemic

An extract from Dr Stuart Sharp’s draft manuscript Architecture Station History: Section 1915-1924 – Splitting Standards – Penury in the Bush and Plenty in the City

In February, the influenza epidemic caused the closure of theatres, libraries, churches and schools in New South Wales. The wearing of masks was made compulsory.  It was the railways which was the means of transmitting the disease to rural towns “as passengers alighted”. [1]

The influenza epidemic was a major issue that affected every part of New South Wales in 1919 and thousands of people died in Victoria and New South Wales.  For the railways, there was a considerable loss of freight and passenger business as well as in adverse impact on its own staff.  Thus, there was both a primary and secondary impact on railway operations, most visibly seen at stations. From February 1919, restrictions were placed on travel.  Interstate travel was only to be conducted under permits and only the major stations were allowed to issue travel permits.  

The influenza epidemic was a major issue that affected every part of New South Wales in 1919 and thousands of people died in Victoria and New South Wales.  For the railways, there was a considerable loss of freight and passenger business as well as in adverse impact on its own staff.  Thus, there was both a primary and secondary impact on railway operations, most visibly seen at stations. From February 1919, restrictions were placed on travel.  Interstate travel was only to be conducted under permits and only the major stations were allowed to issue travel permits.  

In early February, employees of the New South Wales Railways were issued with face masks, in view of the issue of Regulation No. 532 by the Railway Department, which stated:

“no person shall, until such time as the State of New South Wales is declared free of the influenza-pneumonia, enter, or remain in or upon any railway car or tramcar, or any compartment, or platform thereof, all be upon any premises of the Commissioners, unless wearing a face mask, sufficient to exclude the germs of contagion, to be as adjusted as to cover the mouth and nostrils.   Any person guilty of a breach of the buy-law may be removed from any such railway car, tramcar, or premises and, in addition, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding £10.  The use of the mask by the public will be insisted upon at the local railway premises from today.” [2]

Prosecutions were carried out at local courts from February until the end of April.  One such case occurred on 5^th April when Archibald Kneebone was fined 10 shillings for “not having worn a mask on the assembly platform of the Central Railway Station early yesterday morning.”[3]

Starting in April, intrastate travellers were required to produce a statutory declaration stating that the intended traveller had been inoculated and had passed through an inhalation chamber. [4]  A medical certificate also had to be produced. It was the returning soldiers from World War 1 who brought with them the influenza but Army medical staff reported that the use of zinc sulphate spray inhalation had been shown to be effective in clearing the throats of carriers of the disease which was called cerebro spinal meningitis. [5]

In early April, the New South Wales Government ordered that train travellers were to be treated with a zinc sulphate spray on arrival at country railway stations.  This spray was administered in what was known as an inhalation chamber. Country towns all over the state demanded the installation of inhalation chambers and some of these were built internally in general waiting rooms and some were provided elsewhere on the station. Local Station Masters determined where the chambers were to be erected. The one at Goulburn was in use on the 3^rd April and, despite a lack of official documents that describes inhalation chambers, the local newspaper at Goulburn gave the following description.

“Passengers arriving at Goulburn by train are required to pass through this chamber before dispersing in the town.  The chamber is situated alongside the ordinary exit, and is capable of holding from 15 to 20 persons at one time.  The walls and roof are made of bleached calico, and the structure is 7 feet wide by 18 feet long. Five minutes before a train arrives at the station, a railway official turns on the spray from two jets, one at each end of the chamber, and, by the time the passengers are ready to pass through, the apartment is filled with the vapour. The latter contains two percent of sulphate of zinc and is it administered in three-minute doses.  There is nothing unpleasant about passing through an inhalation chamber, and the one at the railway station is no different from any other in this respect.” [6]

It seems that the local carpentry gang erected the hardwood timber frame and, when that was done, the apparatus arrived from Sydney.

By 11^th April, rumours were circulating that the use of zinc was inappropriate.  One press report stated that “a layer of zinc in the throat does not seem to be an ideal method, particularly as the Railway Medical Officer advises men suffering from bronchial or pulmonary affections (sic) not to make use of the inhalatoria.  This, at once, throws out a challenge to the doctors.  It is now their duty to decide the correct formula, but announce it so that immediate relief from the plague is at hand and work in business may go on as usual.  It is only necessary to install inhaling chambers on railway and all transit stations, in workrooms and entrances to all shops, post offices, boarding houses, et cetera.”[7]

Within ten days, the state government announced the discontinuance of inhalation chambers at railway stations and elsewhere “owing to the sulphate of zinc spray used having proved injurious to some persons, and its value as a preventative of infection being doubtful.”[8]  At the end of April, the inhalation chambers were being removed from all stations, including Goulburn.  Country towns everywhere in early April demanded the installation of the inhalation chambers but, by the end of the month, they were placing tenders in newspapers for their removal.  The crisis ended in October, 1919.  Worldwide, 20 million people died from the epidemic with 6,387 people dying in New South Wales. [9]

In just three weeks, the inhalation chamber, a structure that had never before been seen on a New South Wales railway platform, had come into existence and departed from existence.

[1] P. Curby, "A Grim Shadow: The Influenza Pandemic", History, June 2018, p. 16.
[2] Forbes Times, 4^th February, 1919, p. 2
[3] Sydney Morning Herald, 5^th April, 1919, p. 18.  The use of the term “Assembly Platform” was the correct name for what today is erroneously called the “Grand Concourse”.
[4] The Border Morning Mail and Riverina Times, 7^th April, 1919, p. 2.
[5] Singleton Argus, 17^th April, 1919, p. 3.
[6] Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 3^rd April, 1919, p. 2
[7] The Blue Mountains Echo, 11^th April, 1919, p. 3.
[8] The Muswellbrook Chronicle, 17^th April, 1919, p. 2.
[9] R. J. Solomon, The Richest Lode, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1988, pp.325 and 326.

COVID-19 and traffic engineering 

The following are some comments we have received on the impact of COCID-19 

Traffic volumes and management 

Anecdotally, Parramatta Road through Annandale was basically empty at around 1500 today – most unusual.

Traffic lights particularly in the off-peak period are tending to hold on to long cycle times.  The SCATS coordination system should be able to adapt to low volumes but may have some pre-sets (such as maximum total gap time between cars on a green phase) that reflect previous typical flows at a location.  Do we have enough skilled people to review these varying conditions?

Should pedestrian crossings be called up every time?

There has been an exchange of views on LinkedIn about the desirability of making all traffic signal pedestrian features introduce automatically – in order to save people pressing the push buttons and spreading the virus.  One traffic engineer was politely critical of this idea, pointing out the tendency of drivers to disrespect red signals when there are no pedestrians using the crossing.

A Council adjusts the communication avenues 

An inner-city council sent out this message to rate payers.

To protect everyone’s health

• We’re putting a hold on community information sessions and street meetings
• we’ll limit any necessary face to face meeting with you to 15mins and maintain a 1.5 metre distance between us
• we won’t ask you to shake hands
• we’ll temporarily close the Community Information Centre at 84 Lilyfield Road Rozelle

However, we will

• be accessible by phone (a number was given) and by email (and address was given)
• provide regular communication
• arrange necessary longer meetings via Skype

What will happen to discussion about local issues?  It is all very well to swap emails but open dialogue is also important. Community meetings and information sessions are not perfect by any means but there is still a need to consider how we can encourage dialogue. 

One AITPM member has raised the point about just how much governments might implement projects without the usual consultation processes.