GCRF_NF359: Modelling the exposure risk tradeoff between public transit and private paratransit for transport decision making in the era of Covid19

无论是发展中国家还是非发展中国家，安全和有效的运输系统对于维持经济活动至关重要。在大多数发展中国家，交通系统的特点是拥挤的公共交通和微型交通系统，辅之以摩托车出租车和自动三轮车等辅助交通工具。辅助运输部门也是一个重要的就业来源(例如，尼日利亚有300万辆摩托车出租车，乌干达坎帕拉有30万辆，孟加拉国达卡有10.4万辆)。新冠状病毒大流行严重扰乱了运输部门和经济活动。在项目国，禁止使用摩托车辅助运输，以保持安全距离。除了扰乱出行和影响主要是贫穷的用户(其他方式的价格上涨)外，这还导致司机大量失业和贫困。然而，在拥挤的公交车或微型公交车辆上，乘客的安全也存在严重担忧，在这些地方，保持适当的距离几乎是不可能的，而副运输可能是一个可行的替代方案。与摩托车的开放式和自动三轮车的半开放式相比，由于车辆的封闭性，高载客率车辆接触病毒的风险也很高。还有可能降低通过屏障或盾牌进行副传播的风险。然而，没有研究调查这些模式的相对风险，无论是否采取缓解措施。该项目旨在对不同类型运输方式的暴露风险进行建模，以便政策制定者能够做出基于证据的最佳决策。以物理学为基础的计算机建模将伴随着用户调查，以了解他们的旅行模式、偏好和对各种缓解措施(如使用模型设计的盾牌)的接受程度。鉴于微传播率和副传播率在许多其他发援会国家普遍存在，研究结果也将对其他类似发援会国家有用。

A safe and functioning transport system is vital to maintain economic activities in countries, developing or not. In most developing countries, the transport system is characterised by a crowded bus transit and micro-transit systems, supplemented by paratransits such as motorcycle taxis and autorickshaws. The paratransit sector is also a large source of employment (e.g. 3 Million motorcycle taxis in Nigeria, 300,000 in Kampala, Uganda, 104,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh). The COVID19 pandemic has massively disrupted the transport sector and economic activities. In the project countries, motorcycle-based paratransits are banned from operating in order to maintain safe distances. In addition to disrupting travel and affecting the primarily poor users (prices in other modes have gone up), this has also resulted in massive unemployment and poverty among the drivers. However, there are also serious concerns about the safety of passengers in crowded buses or micro-transit vehicles, where maintaining appropriate distances are nearly impossible, and paratransits can be a viable alternative. The risks of virus exposure is also high in high occupancy vehicles due to the closed nature of the vehicles compared to the open nature of motorcycles and semi-open nature of autorickshaws. It may also be possible to mitigate risks in paratransits through barriers or shields. However, there are no studies investigating the relative risks of these modes, with or without the mitigation measures. The project aims to model the exposure risk in different types of transport modes in order to allow policymakers to make an evidence-based optimum decision. The physics-based computer modelling will be accompanied by user surveys to understand their travel pattern, preferences and acceptance of various mitigation measures (such as shields designed using the models). Given the prevalence of micro-and paratransits in many other DAC countries, the results will be useful for other similar DAC countries too.