Abstract
Rail transit systems around the world have been suffering from heavily reduced ridership due to reduced capacity for social distancing and passengers’ concern over the risk of COVID-19 infection. Various countermeasures were implemented to reduce the COVID-19 risk so that passengers felt safe to travel on rail. The objectives of this study were to evaluate COVID-19 countermeasures of Bangkok’s urban rail from passengers’ viewpoints and examine its influence on passenger’s confidence. The background of the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand and the rail countermeasures implemented in Bangkok were summarized. The data were obtained from an interview survey of 1105 railway passengers conducted at the stations during the second wave of the pandemic. Factor analyses and structural equation modeling were conducted. The results revealed that social distancing was not satisfied by the passengers but adversely caused inconvenience and increased infection risk when the station or rail were congested. On the other hand, the passenger temperature check, face mask enforcement, and hand sanitization countermeasures were found to highly and positively contribute to passengers’ confidence. Contact tracing application was also found to raise awareness and confidence. The findings provided insights for rail authorities and related agencies to effectively implement the countermeasures that would be practically and financially sustainable.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2)
Based on the users’ perception survey and the analysis results, this study empirically found that confidence on rail travel could be attributed to the implementation of COVID-19 countermeasures at different extents
Ranges of soft and hard countermeasures were implemented such as cleaning and disinfection, screening of risky passengers, contact tracing of passengers, reducing system capacity to realize physical social distancing, or managing the travel demand by advanced booking, etc
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2). The COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The situation became increasingly severe and uncontrolled since April 2021 until the time of writing this paper (June 2021). As a brief summary of the situation, the initial wave of infection started when the first known case arrived in January 2020. The peak was on 22 March 2020 when 188 newly confirmed cases were reported in a day [2]. In response to the first outbreak, effective on 26 March 2020, the prime minister declared a state of emergency while the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) was established to coordinate the government’s responses.
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