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posted by martyb on Saturday July 18 2020, @07:21AM   Printer-friendly

Social distancing is making public transport worse for the environment than cars – here's how to fix it:

While more people opt for travel by car and private transport, the number of passengers that trains and buses can carry has also been reduced to meet social distancing guidelines. This means that people from different households must keep one to two metres apart. So, once a seat is taken, surrounding seats must be left empty.

This has had a profound effect on the climate impact of train and car travel. When running at normal capacity, public transport is more environmentally friendly than travelling by car. Although a train or bus can produce more C0₂ than a car, they transport far more people, so emissions per person are lower overall.

But under social distancing conditions, and assuming that any unfilled seats correspond to a commuter driving to work instead, diesel-powered public transport produces more C0₂ emissions per passenger than a small car.

Can passengers be seated so public transportation can be more efficient than cars while maintaining social distancing?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2020, @02:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2020, @02:58PM (#1023385)

    In what respect? People who don't own a car still need to get around, especially those working essential jobs. The alternatives aren't easy to scale up on such short notice. Most cities are designed to move people around using a combination of private cars and mass transit. Even with the drop in trips, you're still likely to not have enough cabs at peak times to get everybody around like that.

    Eventually, we'll need herd immunity, whether it's via vaccination or because enough people already had it to prevent the spread. Until then, managing the rate of infection is crucial to ensuring that we have the capacity and that as large a portion of those that get it as possible do so after there are improved treatment protocols developed.