The emergence of COVID-19 has prompted many of us to rethink our options in getting safely from A to B. As governmental advice both in the UK and beyond firmly advises to ride a bike, walk or drive a private vehicle in order to travel, for many citizens this simply isn’t an option.
In major cities, residents typically find themselves facing two options when it comes to going to work, or visiting parks, or safely meeting friends: either take public transport or ride-share.
In response to the early spread of COVID-19 ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft suspended their carpooling services in a bid to help users adhere to social distancing measures, but as the threat of infections continued to grow, faith in the safety of ridesharing has fallen below that of even public transport services.
(Image: McKinsey)
According to McKinsey & Company, just 5% of surveyed respondents believed both ridesharing and carsharing to be safe, with public transportation faring little better, with 7% of respondents believing the transport method to be safe.
The prevalence of comprehensive public transport infrastructures and ridesharing apps like Uber has made many city-dwellers turn their backs on car ownership. The closure of garages has made it more difficult for car owners to find warranty cover.
Complaints over the health and safety practices of Uber and Lyft has led to lawsuits being issued in the US, with claims that the ridesharing apps are endangering the public. But should ridesharing face bans in cities where there are few safe alternatives for residents? Let’s take a deeper look at the role ridesharing can play in offering safe transportation to users who have no personal vehicles.
Getting From A to B in The Age of Social Distancing
The key issue with travelling within densely populated areas is that public transportation is typically crowded with commuters and tourists – leaving very little options but to contravene social distancing guidelines.
According to findings from McKinsey & Company, public transport occupancy regularly leaves travellers with no option but to abandon hopes of physical distancing. In fact, between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm, it’s profoundly difficult to exercise any form of distancing.
Of course, businesses placing a higher emphasis on working from home protocols and the necessity of using facemasks to travel in some cities has helped to ease some concerns about the spread of the virus, but are such mitigating factors really enough to make public transport a viable option when alternative travel arrangements are possible?
Weighing Up The Safety of Public Transport and Ridesharing
Of course, our lives during the pandemic typically involve a significant amount of time spent in our own homes. However, for key workers and those eager to visit loved ones as lockdown restrictions ease, there can be times where leaving the house can be unavoidable – and safe personal modes of transport like cars and bikes aren’t accessible. In these circumstances, public transportation and ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft become the only practical options to consider.
It’s worth noting that both options aren’t great when it comes to mitigating your chances of catching COVID-19. Both public transport and ridesharing can leave passengers exposed to enclosed spaces with strangers, but when faced with an unavoidable choice, which method is safest?
In a bid to shed light on the conundrum, Ellie Murray, assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University claims that one of the most effective ways of picking the safest mode of transport is to always consider choosing “the least crowded option available to you.”
The right or wrong answer to which mode of transport is the safest can change depending on factors like time of day and geographic location. “If your local buses or subway cars are relatively empty, then that might be a safer option than a rideshare, since there could be more space between you and other passengers than you and the driver in a rideshare. If public transportation is quite crowded, then rideshare might be a preferred option,” Murray explained.
Safety in Numbers With Rideshares
Speaking to The New York Post, microbiologist Jason Tetro believes that rideshares can offer a better level of safety from the prospect of catching COVID-19 among passengers due to the difficulty of an infected person transmitting the virus.
“If you are in an Uber, the likelihood is that you are surrounded by people you know, or it’s just you and the driver,” Tetro explained. “The people you know, hopefully they are not sick. And if they are, you will be less than six feet away from them over the course of your day or night together.”
Of course, this explanation is based on the assumption that the Uber driver isn’t displaying COVID-19 symptoms, but Tetro believes that the position of the driver makes the transmission of the virus much more difficult: “He is facing away from you. The likelihood of him coughing or sneezing on you is low. Plus, if he was very sick, he probably would not be working,” Tetro elaborated.
The key dangers posed by rideshares come from the surfaces within the car. With no way of knowing whether the passenger before you was carrying the virus, it’s imperative to exercise caution when touching your face within a rideshare, and it’s vital that you wash your hands after travelling.
Writing for Business Insider, Erin McDowell agreed that ridesharing poses fewer threats than public transport. Despite fewer passengers on underground train systems, McDowell points out that the unpredictability of high volumes of people makes the transport method more dangerous. “Crowded subway cars, trains, and buses can quickly become a hotbed of contaminants due to high foot traffic and riders touching, sneezing, or coughing on shared surfaces,” McDowell explained.
Getting to Work in Safety
To summarise, although rideshares certainly pose a valuable alternative to the dangers of taking public transport to get from A to B in major cities, it’s advisable to walk, cycle, or drive yourself to the places you need to go while the threat of COVID-19 is still out there.
However, public grievances towards ridesharing may be misplaced when it comes to the associated dangers of travelling across cities. With drivers constantly facing away and tighter health and safety regulations in place from major ridesharing companies, the most significant threat of transmission would likely come from yourself as a passenger towards a driver.
In a world that’s slowly discovering what the ‘new normal’ is really going to look like in society, and with more shops and offices reopening following lockdown restrictions, we’re set to see plenty more users of both public transport and rideshares. Whatever mode of transport you choose, just be sure to protect yourself and others and stay home if you’re feeling unwell.
(Syndicated press content is neither written, edited or endorsed by ED Times)
