Washington, D.C., lawmakers remain deadlocked in their high-stakes negotiation on another coronavirus relief package. One of the critical points of contention: billions of dollars of emergency funding for transit agencies, a few of which have lost as much as 90 percent of farebox revenue during this crisis.
At a time when transit agencies are struggling to keep their vehicles and infrastructure in a state of good repair, this debate seems existential. Without $32 billion in support from Washington, the American Public Transportation Association (ATPA) and various transit agencies warn of mass layoffs and terminations of service.
Yet funding cannot simply be spent on keeping workers on payroll if public transit is to thrive after this crisis. If Washington is going to provide additional emergency funding for public transit and municipalities, taxpayers and commuters should insist that transit leaders spend some of that money to address their concerns about public transit and provide safe service that reflects the post-COVID-19 reality. Customer demands have changed; public transit providers should spend some of the congressionally appropriated money to respond to the changing transit market.
Here are a few investment ideas to ensure public transit agencies adapt to the changes that will continue to define the post-COVID-19 environment.
New equipment to clean vehicles
Transit agencies recognized shortly after the COVID-19 outbreak that they needed to assure riders that they were regularly and thoroughly cleaning their vehicles. In response, agencies immediately expanded cleaning and invested in new cleaning equipment and methods.
Several transit agencies and transportation providers, including the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), have taken a page from hospitals and tested UV lighting systems to kill bacteria and viruses inside of vehicles.
The Regional Transportation District of Denver began cleaning vehicles in June with electrostatic sanitizing sprayer, replacing simple hand-wiping cleaning methods that the agency had employed before the outbreak.
Other agencies have taken perhaps the easiest step to protect passengers: opening windows to keep air circulating. This is a practical solution during the summer months, but when the weather turns cold, agencies will need to safely replace air in a vehicle with the windows closed.
Ensuring that air exchange systems work requires that transit agencies maintain fans, replace filters at least once a month, and perhaps install stronger, denser air filters to trap smaller particles.
The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority’s (MARTA) awarded a contract for several hundred Needlepoint Bipolar Ionization (NPBI) filters, to be installed in air conditioning units in bus garages and railyards. The filters are designed to eliminate airborne pathogens and cycle clean air inside of vehicles after service blocks.
This month BART began testing denser filter panels in air conditioning units. The new filters use material that is more woven, which concerns BART officials that the filters may overwork units by blocking air flow.
Efforts to better clean vehicles need not stop at ensuring cleaner air. Agencies could also consider retrofitting vehicle interiors with surface materials that are easier to clean or installing self-cleaning surface materials.
Adding new information technology capabilities and retrofitting vehicles to support social distancing
MTA recently added a feature to their myMTA app to allow passengers to monitor in real time the number of passengers on an arriving bus. This feature is made possible by infrared and 3D imaging sensors mounted on the doorways of MTA buses. These Automated Passenger Counters (APCs) tally up the number of passengers entering and exiting, and the passenger count is then reported to customers on their myMTA app.
This service is not provided for customers traveling on MTA trains, and New Yorkers appear to have noticed. In part because of the myMTA feature, daily ridership on the MTA buses exceeded that of the subway in April and May for the first time in 50 years, according to the New York Times.
Similarly, BART is now using faregate data to calculate the average number of riders per car on every train between each station pair. This information is provided on the BART website to enable passengers to determine when they are better able to socially distance on the trains.
MTA also recently purchased 9,000 flat screens to display service information, many of which will be mounted outside of train stations. According to Mass Transit magazine, MTA plans to use these screens to warn passengers if a station they are entering is crowded.
Agencies should also ensure that passengers can ride vehicles and socially distance from other passengers. This may require that agencies reconfigure seating in buses and trains and install partitions between seats.
Transit agencies could ask their customers if they would be willing to pay an additional 25 or 50 cents a ride for additional safety features. If they are, it might make business sense to invest more in new technology features and retrofitting vehicles.
Comprehensive plans to remap transit service to reflect new customer behaviors
Though it is uncertain what the legacy of COVID-19 will be for public transit, agencies should proactively monitor how demand is changing – both in how consumers are commuting and where they are demanding service – and respond to those changes.
Every transit agency would benefit by gaining a detailed understanding of how demand has changed since the COVID-19 outbreak and how it is responding to those changes. This could be achieved by closely examining each interaction agencies have with their customers, monitoring customer experience inside stops and vehicles, understanding if customers are taking public transit or purchasing trips on ride-hailing apps for first- and last-mile service.
Changes in service demand will likely extend to where commuters need service. Like a balloon, COVID-19 will squeeze transit demand one place while inflating it in another. Agencies should prepare now to deploy more buses and trains where they are needed.
COVID-19’s impact has not been uniform across public transit providers. Commuter rail lines connecting wealthier suburbs to city cores have experienced sharper declines than bus lines that carry essential workers from lower-income neighborhoods, research from the Eno Center for Transportation has found.
If many employers in professional services continue to allow employees to work from home, it is likely that demand for transportation into city centers will remain below pre-COVID-19 levels. At the same time, essential workers in healthcare and public services will continue to need bus service, and transit agencies should eagerly monitor and address this demand.
Responding to the changes in demand will also require collaboration
Many large metropolitan areas have multiple transit agencies that often compete for riders, rather than coordinate their service to optimize their efficiency. Under normal circumstances this is generally acceptable, but with the loss of ridership caused by COVID-19 it can be expensive and wasteful. Where possible, regional transit planners should bring these agencies together to eliminate redundant services, while ensuring the continued ability to socially distance in stations and on buses and trains.
For public transit, the weight of this moment can hardly be overstated. Actions taken now will determine the industry’s profitability years and perhaps decades into the future.
To ensure the industry not only survives this crisis but emerges stronger, agencies need to assess their cleaning procedures, technology portfolio, budget, equipment maintenance and workforce, and square strategies with a market that scarcely looks like it did just six months ago.
------------------------------------------
Richard Blake is a retired transit engineer, having spent more than four decades with the Bay Area Rapid Transit District and various engineering/consulting firms. He is currently a part-time consultant with Intueor Consulting.
Thomas Day is a senior consultant at Intueor Consulting.
Manmohan Khuman is vice president of program delivery at Intueor Consulting, based in Intueor’s Atlanta office. He is responsible for helping clients strategize, plan and execute digital and business transformation initiatives and programs.
