How London Transport Is Preparing for Life After Lockdown | Hacker News Reader

How London Transport Is Preparing for Life After Lockdown

bloomberg.com

19 pointssamizdis47 comments

This is probably going to be tricky. I don't see how the 2 meter rule (or variant thereof) can be enforced on the underground trains at peak times. On a slight tangent, given that everyone will be required to wear a mask doesn't the risk of spreading/catching the virus diminish thereby eliminating the need for the distance rule?

> On a slight tangent, given that everyone will be required to wear a mask doesn't the risk of spreading/catching the virus diminish thereby eliminating the need for the distance rule?

We have good evidence that 2 metre distancing works.

We strongly think that mask wearing is effective, but we fail to find benefits from mask wearing when we run RCTs.

We have a government who has been pushing a herd immunity strategy (even if they dropped that phrasing) and this kind of thing just makes that clear.

Masks are not 100% effective even when worn properly. Think of it like an airliner: smoking is banned, but they also have smoke alarms AND flame retardant fittings.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/05/29/feds-seek-incentives-...

"Japan, which has the third highest rate of transit ridership in the world, found no infection events linked to commuter trains after performing rigorous contact tracing on almost 17,000 confirmed cases."

On the surface I can't see why no instances of infection being traced to travel on Japan's commuter trains has any relevance in a conversation about London's strategy for decreasing infection risk.

From the article you linked:

"Oshitani says riders are usually alone and not talking to other passengers. And lately, they are all wearing masks. “An infected individual can infect others in such an environment, but it must be rare,” he says."

Tokyo has benefitted from both a fall in the volume of passengers on the Metro, and an infection rate of 0.5 per capita. The virus is more than 500x as prevalent in the UK as a whole, and more than 600x as prevalent in London.

The point is, in Japan's case masks appear to be 100% effective, or very close to it, in eliminating transmission on public transport.

Do you have a reason to believe greater prevalence of the virus is linked to lower mask effectiveness in this specific context?

Wearing masks being 100% effective is utterly impossible. The most positive studies show them being more like 85% effective.

There simply are no infected people on Japan's transit, due to the country's intensive, early quarantining procedures. (same with Korea and Taiwan)

Japan also has a 99% conviction rate in their criminal justice system. I wouldn't trust their statistics uncritically. It's often more a matter of what isn't being said.

> in Japan's case masks appear to be 100% effective

I think important to note that no serious person could or would ever claim that masks are "100% effective". You're drawing this conclusion from the absence of outbreaks on a depleted Tokyo metro and (although you don't mention it) Paris too.

It isn't possible to legislate for manufacturing defects in masks, suboptimal storage conditions, wearing it incorrectly, etc. That's before you even get to the myriad confounding variables which stem from different cultures AND weigh the fact that you're drawing your conclusion -- which will result in preventable deaths, if it's wrong -- from an absence of evidence to the contrary (!).

The article you linked and many others on this topic highlight that Japan adopted a "three C's strategy" which has led to social distancing on the Metro in addition to masks (which were already a popular facet of commuting in Tokyo). So just like London, they're doing social distancing and wearing a mask.

Worth observing that New York's mask-wearing MTA employees have been disproportionately blighted by COVID-related mortality[1], and London's bus drivers aren't faring (ha) much better[2].

> Do you have a reason to believe greater prevalence of the virus is linked to lower mask effectiveness in this specific context?

I didn't suggest that the virus being more prevalent lowers the effectiveness of masks. I pointed out that prevalence is more than 600x higher in London than Japan. The Tokyo Metro transports around 7m passengers per day, which yields 35 infected passengers on the system each day (0.5 per capita). TFL moves 9 million passengers each day, with a 333 per capita instance of COVID-19 infection, which means nearly 30,000 infected individuals.

If masks are 100% effective when worn properly, but 10% of the time are either defective or worn improperly, a peak journey in Tokyo would expose 700,000 people to risk from 3.5 COVID carriers. You could express this as a ratio of 200,000 at risk of contracting for every 1 person at risk of spreading the disease. In London the same math sees 900,000 people exposed to risk from 3,000 people. The ratio becomes 300:1.

When you consider it in these terms it doesn't seem imprudent to reduce capacity AND insist on masks. At least until there are more meaningful data to support decision making.

[1] https://www.thecity.nyc/2020/6/1/21277407/nyc-subway-crews-h...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/world/europe/coronavirus-...

This is probably one of the cases where absence of evidence isn't necessarily evidence of absence, especially if contract tracers are tasked with identifying possible sources of outbreaks they can actually follow up on and ask people to isolate. As far as I'm aware they're not claiming that none of the known cases used public transport at all. I can't speak for Japan, but identifying which part of the quarter of the population using the Underground I might have come into contact with [the COVID-infected bodily residue of] would have been a practical impossibility even if we'd had a policy of contact tracing at the time. In the six days prior to showing symptoms I worked from home, making one train trip through London and a not-more-obviously risky trip to the supermarket.

New York City, which is very dense, uses a lot of public transport and had extremely high infection rates.

They also have an extremely pro-mask and personal responsibility culture. I find it very likely that someone asymptomatic would be wearing a mask properly (covering the nose and mouth fully) and that someone with symptoms would stay home or in another semi/full quarantine location as much as possible.

The post I was replying to was saying that masks are not 100% effective when worn properly. Now you're talking about people not wearing masks properly. What's your point?

Asymptomatic people probably aren't a significant cause of transmission.

People with symptoms who stay at home are going to infect far fewer people than people with symptoms who wear masks and travel.

And all the surface touching - armrests, holding on to poles and handles, then an eye rub, nail biting, or on the underground more likely a nose pick.

masks only have very small contribution, perhaps 10-20% at most.

the thing is no one fully understand how this virus spreads, who is at risk, what exactly is the right course of action

so they latch on whatever the latest fad is,

it used to be lockdown, then it became social distancing, but then the riots came and cases did not go up, now it is facemasks that save us all

I don't think that's true. There's e.g a recent study from the USS Roosevelt, and it showed to be the most effective measure. Followed by social distancing.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6923e4.htm

saying that masks are more effective than social distancing does not make any sense whatsoever. How would you get the virus if there is no one around you.

Besides how could you be socially distant in the military and on an aircraft carrier...

they don't have to be 100% effective, they are a signal that the wearer is at least being considerate of others and understands there are risks being public.

it is akin to respecting someone's space.

On the London Underground there is zero respect of personal space.

yes, distance when you can, and wear a mask when you can't. for everyday situations, you don't need both, even on the train/bus.

also, it's about a threshold reduction of risk, as zero risk is practically impossible and counter-productive.

I think they forgot the bit about withdrawing free transport for school children and pushing it onto the local councils to pay for instead.

The national government has withdrawn free transport for children, not TFL

That’s a fair description. It was part of the terms of the bail out.

A bailout required because the national government ordered TFL to operate in the way it did (80%+ service) while the customers had dropped to 10%.

While private firms were bailed out with no conditions, TFL wasn't, because the national government wants to make the mayor (who's from the other party) look bad for the next election.

Source? TfL is a local authority, which basically makes it a council.

Part of TfL’s mandate as a local authority is to provide free bus services for school children (who live more than 2 miles from school I believe), they don’t get a choice.

https://853.london/2020/05/30/tfl-bailout-we-face-16m-bill-i...

That’s interesting, I wonder how that interacts with the Greater London Authority Act, the legislation that give TfL its authority, and determines it obligations.

Unfortunately I can’t find exact line in that act that outlines TfL obligations, but this article[1] quotes TfL’s CFO making this statement with regards to TfL obligations and it funding:

> I think it will shock everybody, if you are to read the GLA Act, just what our minimum statutory obligations are as a transport authority. It does not include running a Tube service. It includes running a minimal bus service for children living more than two miles away from their school.

[1] https://www.londonreconnections.com/2020/tfl-the-impossible-...

Well that was a particularly shockingly thoughtful read. Thanks for posting.

I’m actually lost for words.

I feel like the London subway carriages are a lot smaller than subway carriages from other parts of the world; e.g South Korea. In addition, I’m not sure how good the air circulation is in the tube as it doesn’t have the best reputation for having a good AC system. Hope this emboldens the British gov to make the necessary changes to the tube.

Yes, they are smaller, but north of the border in Scotland, the Glasgow underground system runs carriages that are smaller still.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Subway

It doesn't have AC. The network is over 100 years old and built to a small loading gauge, which limits the size of the trains and ancillary like AC units. This is unlikely to change without absolutely vast sums of money being thrown at it.

AC on the cars is probably never going to happen, but they are thinking about dumping the heat out of the clay.

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2010/07/air-condit...

> I feel like the London subway carriages are a lot smaller than subway carriages from other parts of the world; e.g South Korea

Well yeah - when were those built? Over a hundred years after the London one.

> Hope this emboldens the British gov to make the necessary changes to the tube.

What do you expect them to do? Re-bore all the tunnels? I'm not sure that's realistic.

See: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/central-line-temperature-lon...

By far the most articulate article I have read (so far) on the matter.

As the other posters correctly state, it all boils down to the clay retaining heat, the tiny tunnels, and the age of the system.

It’s a fascinating problem!

Air circulation is awful in the (smaller) Tube trains. I read somewhere that the tunnels heat up so much during the day because of heat from the trains that they don’t have time to cool down at night. Definitely unpleasant in the summer. The larger trains are getting fitted with air conditioning nowadays.

You should see the carriages on the glasgow subway... They're tiny!

Trasnport For London was bailed out a month ago - whatever they do is going to be cheap and makeshift.

I think support for public transport will be one of the major casualties of this pandemic. In general, with this pandemic combined with the civil unrest, I think you may start seeing a lot of people fleeing the cities for the suburbs.

There's no civil unrest in London, a few marches and protests in the city centres

The tl;dr seems to be that capacity will be 13-15% of the norm (the norm is 9m people per day, so 1.17m-1.35m), and with double decker buses only able to ferry 22% of their normal load around, and tube carriages only carrying 7% of their normal load if 2m social distancing is maintained.

(Wouldn't put it past Bloomberg to have just added the 7% + 22% = 29% / 2 = 14.5% to arrive at their implied 13-15% range.)

The mayor is temporarily placing traffic restrictions in certain areas and widening cycle lanes and pavements to encourage more bikes/pedestrian transit.

More than 50% of people drive to work in NYC? That is completely bonkers.

No. The map in this profile has the area Deloitte considers "New York" for the index: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/4...

That it's only 57% for that entire area speaks to how many people in it commute into the City for work.

Here's the source for all their profiles: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/future-of-mob...

Is that metro NYC or just the city? NYC has a very dense core but expansive low density suburbs. The metro area technically covers four states.

I feel like doing this would completely eliminate the environmental AND traffic benefits of public transportation -- you're effectively distancing people at the same amount they would be if they were driving cars.

I don't have a solution, unfortunately, but I just hope that a vaccine will allow us to break the 2 meter rule eventually.

There’s an unpopular option: herd immunity.

NYC is 1/3rd to 1/4th there. Would you trade 3-4x the deaths to get it over with, completely? It’s not an easy decision. It’s hard to say yes.

But what if it’s Q4 2021 and there is still no vaccine?

Wow, the animations on that page are not only annoying but prevent you from actually focusing on the illustrations.

Whoever "designed" this needs to think about usability next time.

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