Making Metros safe to use during the pandemic- Solenza Lazar
SOLENZA LAZAR
TopicDesignSafety and securityShared modes of mobilityTransport patterns & user needs
The use of public transport has been greatly reduced due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to guarantee security in the current pandemic I worked with the Spanish hub to come up with a solution to this problem, using the Spanish metro as a base for my design.
There was a concern regarding the space needed to be kept between each passenger to ensure safety, as well as having to keep spaces of ingress and egress free to prevent contact between moving passengers. To address these issues, I designed perching seats to increase the space between standing and sitting passengers, as well as transparent shatterproof panels between these seats and between standing passengers to prevent the virus transmission. Finally, every three weeks, the metro interior would be disinfected and coated with a substance that can keep surfaces virus and bacteria free for three weeks.
Hi Marco. You are completely right about the ventilation system. This already exists in France and England (I'm not sure about Spain), where 2/3 of the air is fresh and clean air, and 1/3 is recycled air. This makes sure that the air is renewed at all times.
The reason the plexiglass is there, is partly to give an added sense of safety for the passengers, but also to allow the metro to have more passengers than you would be able to have in this pandemic situation, because the physical barriers between people allow passengers to be slightly closer together without increasing the risk of contagion (something that the ventilation system could not ensure on its own, as shown on French and British metros and trains). This method of ventilation combined with pannels is the solution that is compulsary to have in factories and offices.
Think there are also wider issues of how we can 'cheaply' make public transport safer and win back public confidence.
Social distancing may be the norm now, and that is probably a good thing, when you consider travel during the rush hour. Perhaps it will now be mandatory to wear masks on PT - although this may cause problems in terms of vision and breathing.
What is the public perception of PT as we transition out of lock down? Will fears over safety override issues relating to sustainabilty? So will people prefer to use their cars or cycle/walk.
If there is movement away from PT, is it sustainable as revenue streams have been hit and will not recover in the short - medium time
what is the new USP for PT? worried that it willbe seen as a thrid class form of transport (back to Thatcher era). How can design be used to create high end experiences for passengers, at a cost affordable to the operators . so we are looking at retrofits of existing vehciles,
Marco, that's a great line of thinking. Please could we discuss further, it would be really useful to have an additional perspective. We could explore the way that airflow occurs in the coach and incorporate this into the interior surfaces as a visual indicator of a passive ventilation method.
I'm not sure those plexiglass panels are really helpful in preventing the virus spread. Metro coaches generally have a strong air ventilation and droplets paths would follow the related draughts. It is not like putting some barriers in a room. Indeed, there are around some ideas to prevent the virus spread not through phisical barrier but by carefully designing air ventilation patterns whose draughts are in between people.
3 years ago