The rail transit system needs to take a series of countermeasures to reduce the virus infection risks of public transportation and control the spread of COVID-19, because of the leakproofness of the system and the dangerousness of the infectious diseases. As an external service department, it should adjust the train service, focus on the management of internal staff, and inform the common sense of epidemic prevention for users.
As the worldwide professional association representing the railway sector, International Union of Railways (UIC) has published two questionnaires in 2020 March to survey the countermeasures that adopted to prevent COVID-19 spreading in the rail transit system. There are 57 organizations from 35 countries around the world participated in that survey, which are the members of UIC. A data base file named UIC Covid19 TF_Data Base is proposed by UIC, which recorded the countermeasures in those countries to prevent COVID-19 spreading in rail transit field [13].
Based on the survey of UIC, the countermeasures of rail transit systems in different countries around the world are collected and collated, and the outline of the epidemic prevention initiatives is shown in Fig 3. The countermeasures are classified as 2 categories, 6 aspects, and 31 items. Specifically, from the view of management scope, the measures are divided into the external and internal management countermeasures, and every category have 3 aspects, which will be discussed in detail as follows.
3.1 External epidemic prevention and control for rail system
Rail transit system provides basic guarantee for mobility of society and it is necessary to protect passengers’ life and health. The spread of the virus should be controlled in the process of organizing passengers and detailed measures should be developed to deal with suspected cases. In addition, due to the public attribute of rail transit, media resources are accompanied by it, which can be considered as a window for information sharing. Therefore, the external management countermeasures include three aspects: passenger management, COVID-19 suspected cases disposal, and information dissemination.
3.1.1 Service management
In the rail transit system, passengers need to go through a series of processes such as enter the station, wait the train, board the train and exit the station. In some countries, passengers should be checked the at security passage before they enter a station. If effective measures are not taken in the process, the moving passengers, crowd platforms and closed carriages are very likely to cause the spread of the epidemic. As the train is a movable equipment and the station is a fixed place, the epidemic prevention and control measures should be adapted to different environments. Therefore, the passenger control and service measures on board and at station will be analyzed independently in this section.
(1) On board
The train is a moving device, which is a closed environment during operation, so the coronavirus will spread quickly in the limited space once it invades. In addition, passengers need to stay in the carriage for long time during travel, which may greatly increase the duration of exposure to virus and the risk of infection. Therefore, some necessary preventive measures should be taken on board.
Loading rate control. To encourage passenger to maintain safety social distance, controlling loading rate of trains or occupancy seat are widely used in many countries, such as China, Canada, France, South Korea and so on. Because the primary way that COVID-19 appears to spread is by close person-to-person contact via droplets or skin touch. Keeping a safety social distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) can prevent the spread of the virus. For example, the standing tickets are no longer sold in China during the outbreak. The train occupancy rate is limited at around 33% in Spain, 35% in Canada and 50% in China. The passengers won’t be seated directly beside one another, which are just seated in one seat out of two in France and South Korea. In Italy, some new rules for seat reservation are set, which ensure the minimum distance more than 1 meter.
Personal protection. The onboard passengers are required to take personal protection such as take masks, wash hands, limit close contact, cover mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing. Wash hands frequently is one of the cheapest and most important ways to prevent the spread of the virus. Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or with soap and water, which can kill viruses that may be on your hands. The process of washing hands is important but easily neglected. Specifically, to eliminate the virus on our hands effectively, we should wash them for at least 20-30 seconds and following a scientific procedure. What’s more, the time of washing hands should also be noticed. After blowing nose, coughing or sneezing, after visiting a public space, after touching surfaces outside of the home, before, during and after caring for a sick person, before and after eating, we should all make sure to wash our hands [14].
Take temperature. Because one of the most typical symptoms of COVID-19 is fever, it’s necessary for passengers to be screened the temperature on board. Considering that some passengers may pass the inspection by physical cooling before boarding, the onboard passenger will be randomly taken the temperature to timely find the suspected infection. Any passenger with body temperature of 37.3℃ or above will be insulated immediately and then transferred at the next station for medical check.
Adjust catering service. The catering service is adjusted or even cancelled on the train. It is necessary to control the catering service to prevent the spread of the virus because passengers will take off their masks and eat. As a result, the prohibition use of dining car is advocated in some trains. Operators delivered all foodstuffs and beverages to passengers as a package and covered. Furthermore, all the glasses, plate, cutlery are single-used and disposable.
Offer health necessaries. The operators provide protective equipment such as masks and bottled disinfectant for passengers to prevent the virus catching and spreading. To implement this policy, the crews provide free masks for passengers, if they lost their masks at station or on board, and the passengers are also suggested to take masks before they enter the station. What’ more, the crews are asked to avoid physical contact and do not touch passengers’ personal belongings wherever possible. The crews should also carry a disinfectant whenever possible, and managers are requested to arrange for disinfectants to be provided in their area of responsibility.
Improve waste disposal process. The used masks, tissue and other trashes may carry a lot of virus, so the disposal of the special trash properly is important. Waste may cause biochemical pollution, especially for masks and used tissue, so they should be put into a bag and then thrown away in the trash. The bags have been put in all compartments for travelers' hygienic rubbish. The bags are tightly closed and placed in the designated places when they start to be used.
(2) At station
To keep the passenger crowd level of the rail transit system within a preventable range, it is necessary to not only take measures on board, but also at stations to guarantee the service level for passengers entering the system. Meanwhile, the management of the station hall also cannot be ignored, which can cause crowds gathering. The specific measures are shown as follows.
Investigate qualification. Pre-boarding temperature screening measures can be performed to avoid the suspected patient access to public areas. The infrared automatic thermometers can be installed at major stations and all passengers’ temperatures are taken at station entrance or exit. What’s more, to protect the safety of passengers and staffs, the suspected patients are controlled and suggested not to board the train. This measure can ensure that most of the passengers of rail transit service are all healthy, which is efficient to control the virus spread at the source, even it may make passengers feel troublesome. Specifically, in China, the health quick response code (health QR code) is proposed by the government, which can reflect the health condition of a person. The citizens apply for the health QR code on the mobile phone application, and the health condition will be updated all around the country. If the citizens are patients or contacted with the suspected patients or stop at the area where is high-risk area, the health QR code will reflect the information with a red color; and if the citizens are suspected of contacting with the patients or stop at the area where is medium-risk area, the health QR code is yellow; otherwise, it is green. The passengers will be checked the health QR code when they entering the station, and only the passengers with the green code can get through. The passengers with other color codes are suggested stay at home and reduce the unnecessary trips.
Close public places. Just like the restaurant on board is closed, the operators closed the public places, such as restaurants, shops, and passenger waiting rooms of the stations, which can avoid the indirect contact with others, and reduce the passenger gathering.
Suspend ticket checking. In some railway systems, the ticket checking is mandatory before they get access to the platform. During the pandemic, the staff welcoming and ticket checking at station exits can be suspended or canceled to avoid unnecessary gathering of people and avoid the contact to protect staffs.
Provide travel advice. The operators provide some travel tips to passengers, which can help reduce the risk of viral infections. For example, ask passengers to wear masks, avoid walking into the crowed people, comply with minimum interpersonal distance, and not to eat food at stations.
Increase relief inventory. Since disinfection and cleaning have become daily routine tasks, the necessary material reserves are indispensable. The government should specifically introduce policies to guarantee the supply of disinfection and monitoring equipment and increase the stock of antiviral drugs. The mentioned materials include hand sanitizer, disinfectant, protective clothing and spare medicine. In addition, a certain number of masks should be prepared for passengers to prevent them from needing to be replaced if the masks fall or break.
3.1.2 COVID-19 suspected cases care
Suspected cases generally have the symptoms of COVID-19 without nucleic acid testing, such as cough, fever, shortness of breath or fatigue. If the diagnosis is confirmed after testing, they will be converted to a confirmed case. Passengers in this situation may also be contagious due to the presence of viruses. To minimize the risk of virus spreading, proper treatment of the suspected cases is required. The process of take care of suspected cases in the railway is very important and necessary in epidemic prevention and control. Based on the survey of the affected countries, a series of successive measures can be summarized.
Just like the management of passengers, the handling of suspected cases can also be divided into two circumstances: on board and at station. The circumstances of the two scenarios are different so the corresponding measures can also be diverse. Generally, the stations are in the urban area and have seamlessly connection with the medical department. As the result, measures for taking care of the COVID-19 suspected cases can be easier at stations. Meanwhile, the treatments on board may be complicated but the main process are similar. The main process of handling with the suspected cases is that: keep the suspected cases taking masks, set up a temporary isolation area, transfer them through the specialized access, transfer the close contacts to a safe place and observed regularly, report the information to the related units, record and trace close contacts. The specific measures of the above process are listed sequentially as follows.
Keep suspected case taking mask. To reduce the risk of infection for other passengers, the suspected cases are asked to keep taking mask. If the mask of the sick person lost, they will be given an unopened mask so they can take the mask themselves, and use the mask following the instructions in the information sheet.
Set up temporary isolation area. A temporary isolation area should be set up at a specific space of the train or the station. When the suspected cases are discovered by taking temperature, they will stay in the temporary isolation area until they are transferred.
Report suspected case. The suspected case will be informed to the related units (such as the dispatching office or the centers for disease control) by the known reporting channel. The transfer measure and necessary coordination will be scheduled.
Transfer suspected case. The suspected cases should be transferred to the temporary isolation area the first time, which minimize contact with healthy people. Then, based on the communication with the related units and the transfer plan, the passengers with a fever will be timely delivered to the scheduled station with a health check-up station. They will be transferred to the local epidemic prevention department for further medical checks and treatment.
Transfer close contacts. The passengers in the sick passenger’s immediate vicinity will be asked to move to a safe place and observed regularly. Wherever possible, prevent people from entering and leaving the area where the sick passenger is located. Meanwhile, the operator will provide guidelines for managing the suspected and infected individuals.
Record and trace close contacts. All people (including train crew) who came within 2 meters of the sick passenger will be distributed the forms (include identity, a means of contacting and so on) and requested to fill them out. After screening, if the fevered passengers are either confirmed or suspected patients, the operators will immediately inform the local epidemic prevention department and report information of their close contacts, to make it easy for authorities to trace them. Trace the infected person for infection process as clearly as possible. Meanwhile, the confirmed cases’ information will be published and announced to the other passengers on the train. In addition, considering the mobility of people, this information should also be reported to the national unified information platform, in order to meet the need for big data search later.
3.1.3 Information dissemination
As a part of the public service system, the information system of rail transit such as broad casting, screening, sign etc. is one of the most important medium to disseminate information. When the outbreak occurs, the rail transit system plays significant role in providing travel and epidemic prevention information for passengers and citizens. As passengers may not understand on the different operation control countermeasures with normal situation.
Specifically, information disseminating measures can be classified into online measures and offline measures. The online measures include information disseminating by TV, official website, mobile app, social networks and e-mail. The offline measures include information disseminating through public announcement systems and staffs.
Release information using TV and internet. The operators continuously and timely updated the information related to the epidemic outbreak, updated on prevention measures, and organizational measures through online media tools such as TV, official website, social networks, mobile app and e-mail. Meanwhile, they disseminated the knowledge on the virus prevention and information regarding coronavirus to passengers, which includes the cause of the disease, symptoms of the disease, ways of transmission, control and prevention, etc.
Disseminate by internal mediums. The operators kept looping the promotional videos and voices of prevention measures with different languages through public announcement systems such as surveillance service, information display and broadcast at stations and onboard. Besides, some staffs were briefed on proper hygiene measures to support passengers.
Provide posters and materials. The operators published and provided leaflets, brochures and initiative materials to travelers to raise awareness among passengers regarding symptoms and hygiene practices includes information about symptoms, personal protective measures and social distancing measures. What’s more, the posters about prevention information can be published at the bulletin board and the prevention measures poster was displayed on the bathroom doors, mirrors, ticket office and business lounge.
3.2 Internal epidemic management for rail system
In addition to the prevention and control for passengers in the rail transit system, it is also very important to ensure the safety of the staffs. It is a requisite for the normal operation of the system, because a railway staff would connect with hundreds even thousands of passengers. One case of staff could cause severe spread of the virus in the network. The virus may remain at the surface of the equipment, in which the virus carriers touched. Therefore, the equipment in the rail transit system that includes trains and station communal facilities should be timely disinfected during epidemic period. What’s more, the normal operation rules may also break, which need to adjust timely to accommodate the passenger demand during the specific period. The internal measures to ensure the normal operation of the rail transit system include the following aspects: Staff management, equipment management, and operation management, which will be discussed in detail as follows.
3.2.1 Staff management
The staffs can be regarded as virus-susceptible population, because they contact with passengers frequently every day especially for the trainmen and ticket sellers. Therefore, the measures for passengers are also apply for the staffs, such as take masks, take temperature before working, keep safety social distance and so on. Meanwhile, in allusion to the processes of shifting work, meeting and training, some special measures need to be taken to prevent and control during the epidemic period.
These measures are being taken by most countries, such as wearing masks, taking body temperature before working, reducing the distribution density of staff in the workplace, prohibiting fever people from taking jobs and distributing protective equipment for employees. In allusion to the processes such as shifting work, meeting and training, some special measures need to be taken to prevent and control during the epidemic period as follows.
Strengthen staff protection. To ensure the normal operation of the rail transit system, the health and safety of staffs should be protected firstly. As the general protection measures, wearing masks, distributing protective equipment for employees, reducing the distribution density of staff in the workplace, taking temperature before working and prohibiting fever people from taking jobs are effective for epidemic prevention and control, which are being taken by most countries. What’s more, if the face masks are disposable, they should be replaced per 6-8 hours for the staffs on long duty [15].
Decentralize staff distribution. It will greatly avoid the contact between people because physical isolation can effectively cut off the path of virus from infecting staff. Considering the closure property of workplace, once an employee is infected with the virus, it will spread quickly in a closed space. Some measures should be taken into consideration to insulate the internal official area from the external environment, and decentralize the distribution of the staffs. For example, rail transit department may set up separate passages, elevators and toilets for employees to avoid sharing the same facility with passengers. To reduce the shift frequency, the staffs can be rearranged to change the working shift system. The staffs who may contact with the passengers are organized and managed independently, which can avoid that the internal staffs contact with the external people.
Encourage remote communication. Assembly is easy to cause people to gather infection, which often occurs in public places such as hospitals. To ensure the safety of staff, scenes where many people gather should be avoided as much as possible. Without face-to-face meetings, they can take the form of online office, which not only reduces the contact, but also makes the time arrangement more flexible. The companies encourage people to use the Internet and communicate by email. What’s more, the private network is also the main medium for transmitting information by which some companies decided to release information.
Strengthen staff training. This method can improve the awareness of workers to prevent the virus. They should ensure their own health firstly before they serve others. As a working skill, it should be available for every employee. There are many countries taking action to train staff, but the content of training in different countries is slightly different. Specifically, it mainly includes the following four specific contents. First of all, let the staff master the management procedures for suspected cases and confirmed cases, which is a basic ability that the staffs should have. Furthermore, it is important for staffs to assess their health status. Once suspect to have symptoms by themselves, they should be quarantined at home in time to avoid bringing the virus into the workplace. In addition, they should also have sufficient knowledge of COVID-19 prevention and control. Not only to protect themselves, but also to improve the ability to identify the infected people. Moreover, some countries have adopted training to encourage staff to pay attention to work etiquette and personal hygiene.
Enhance work flexibility. In response to the special situation during the epidemic, employees may also encounter various difficulties correspondingly. To enhance the care for them and allow them to work on the job better at the same time, it is necessary to adjust the flexibility of daily work. Flexible work system could be attempted to implement, which has provided employees with a certain degree of freedom. Some companies minimize the number of workers in positions exposed to the outside world and strive for the health and well-being of employees. For employees who are in poor physical condition and have low immunity, special holiday is a favorable measure to provide employees with health protection. Due to the school closure in some place, many staff’s children are left unattended. Therefore, some companies specifically allowed employees to carry their children to work and set up a special place for guardianship.
Advise staff to stay at home in spare time. In addition to regulating employees' behavior in the work process, if daily life is neglected, the virus will also be carried into the working place. As a public service industry, the healthy condition of the staffs in the system should also be strictly guarded during non-working times. Prohibiting employees from going to high-risk areas can greatly reduce the possibility of infection. On the basis of grasping the employees' disease history, more precise measures were promoted gradually, such as prohibiting employees from transiting at local airports in high-risk areas. The employees are advised to avoid going to the hospital or other crowded places. Last but not least, quarantining employees who travel to the high-risk areas is also an effective means.
Restrict entry for regions. Reducing the movement of people is the most traditional measure for epidemic prevention and control. Some places such as control rooms and ticket offices do not need to open for all staff, in which should be strictly limited the number of people who enter these areas. The operators in Japan and Belgium have set up some areas where unrelated people are not allowed to enter, and the channels of employees have been optimized to reduce the possible spread of the virus.
3.2.2 Equipment management
Facilities and equipment such as passenger station hall, platform, and trains, ensure the daily operation of public places, but they will also become a primary way for the virus to stay and spread while in contact with different people. In order to cope with epidemic situation, the use of equipment should also be adjusted accordingly for changes.
Enhance air circulation. The ventilation equipment inside the train have been reformed, the main purpose of which is to enhance the air circulation. The same situation also happened on the ventilation equipment of the station. As a respiratory disease, COVID-19 can spread through droplets. In a closed space, the virus will show greater lethality, when it reaches a certain concentration. Frequent ventilation is mainly to reduce the virus concentration. When fresh air circulates and the droplets carrying the virus fall to the ground, its pathogenicity will decrease and the chance of infecting others will be less.
Increase disinfection frequency. Basically, each country all over the world regularly disinfects every kinds of equipment in the rail transit system. From fixed equipment to mobile equipment and from the surface of the object to the whole equipment, it is necessary to arrange for dedicated personnel to perform killing virus and cleaning work. The disinfection operation mainly includes two levels, by fixed cyclical time and in specific location. The common disinfection areas at stations include security equipment, gate machine, elevator cars, seats, toilets, handrails and recycled ticket cards. The train should focus on the columns, armrests, seats, doors and other parts, which are easily accessible by passengers. Apart from that, air-conditioning filters should also be replaced regularly. The depot should also be all-round disinfected in the high-risk areas. The stations and vehicles should be disinfected and cleaned at different frequencies according to the level of area risk. In China, for example, the key equipment on the station that passengers used frequently such as toilet, ticket gate and escalator are disinfected per 2 hours for the high-risk areas (such as Beijing in June 2020); the hall and platform of stations in low-risk areas (such as Changsha in February 2020) are disinfected 2 times per day. What’s more, except for the planned disinfection operations, the specific disinfection that response to the suspected cases care should also be considered. The space that suspected cases touched and remained should be disinfected on time. Meanwhile, the carriage where suspected cases stayed should be disinfected on time. As soon as the train arrives at the car depot, the whole train also should be comprehensively disinfected.
3.2.3 Operation management
The occurrence of COVID-19 has led to variation in the relationship between supply and demand. To meet the evolution of passenger travel, the operation service should be adjusted in a timely manner. The specific performances are as follows.
Adjust operation plan. The epidemic has drastically changed passenger travel demand. At the same time, it is necessary to consider the density and evacuation of personnel while transporting passengers. Especially for some countries which international passenger travels are frequently, the supply structure of the transportation system should be adjusted accordingly. In view of this situation, the external border services of rail transit ought to be shut down and the train stopping at some specific cities (high risk areas) should be directly canceled. Meanwhile, the passengers are informed about the risk of traveling and advised to travel during off-peak hours instead of crowding during peak hours. Reducing the frequency of train operation also proves to be a useful method. In some countries (such as Japan and Spain), the frequency of trains is decreased to control the number of travel passengers during the outbreak. On the contrary, the train frequency is increased to reduce the passenger loading rate of each carriage in some countries (such as China) during the resumption stage of working and production, which can not only guarantee the daily trips of citizens but also ensure the safety social distance of them. In addition, the transportation of emergency supplies and life necessities should be regarded as the top priority during the epidemic, which are planed preferentially and timely.
Alter transportation procedure. The epidemic disrupted the original travel plans of many passengers. For non-essential travel, most passengers will choose to apply for refunds. In fact, the government also encourages passengers to cancel travel plans and consciously isolate themselves at home. Therefore, corresponding measures have been introduced to facilitate passengers to go through such procedures. The specific measures can be changing the original booking rules, without handling fees. For rail transportation, passenger travel needs to be planned in advance, so the time limit for refunds can be extended and the scale of online ticket purchases needs to be expanded, providing convenience as much as possible. Some places updated the rules for ticket reservations, increased the reservation ratio and reassigned seats to ensure a safe distance between passengers. Besides, to improve the safety of rail transit system, the closed counters were used and contactless ticket sales were recommended.
Strengthen cooperation. To improve the service level of rail transit system, the joint efforts of the whole society are necessary, instead of the railway industry alone. The rail transportation departments of countries all over the world are exploring the new cooperation models with other industries. For instance, working with the human resources agency, which will assess the impact of human losses on the transportation system so that production can be returned to normal as soon as possible when the outbreak recovers. The medical department will provide convenience for emergency delivery to infected people and get access to the latest information on the virus timely. In return, the rail transit industry can also help them by exclusive services, such as customized trains and parking lots. Cooperating with the police could place the station under control, ensure the channelization of passengers and maintain the order of transportation, which are widely used in France, Germany and China.