COVID-19 at Work: understanding transmission in the public transport sector

This study will enhance knowledge and understanding of transmission in the public transport sector, as well as the risk perceptions of operators, staff and passengers. It will support the sharing of lessons learned, good practice, and information sources across the industry and between its sub-sectors.

Study findings will help generate recommendations to help the government and the sector as a whole respond more effectively to infectious disease outbreaks and keep transport services operating. They will also highlight gaps in information resources and where further research is needed.

The project aims to address the following:

• What are the perceptions of risk of transmission among the various stakeholders (experts, operators, unions, workers, passengers) within the public transport sector?
• What mitigations are being put in place, and what is the perceived effectiveness of these risk mitigation strategies? Are these perceptions different between the stakeholders?
• What are the major knowledge gaps that will need to be addressed in the short and longer term?

The research is taking place in two stages:

• Phase 1:interviews with stakeholders, including sector experts, regulators, operators, researchers, workers, unions and passengers. 47 interviews were carried out between January and May 2021. The report on this phase has now been published.
• Phase 2: interviews with a sub-sample of the original respondents, took place between December 2021 and February 2022. These investigated whether perceptions had changed since Phase 1, particularly as a result of major changes to government rules and advice in the intervening period. The report on this phase has been published

Project team