Resolve to Save Lives

Maintaining Essential Transport During COVID-19

Rendering of the 2019-nCoV virion. Dan Higgins, MAM/CDC/REUTERS

This guide is designed to help cities reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission within urban mass transit systems—whether publicly or privately operated—while continuing to provide safe mobility for essential workers and access to essential services. This guide describes how community-wide public health strategies should be combined and coordinated with measures by mass transit operators to reduce COVID-19 transmission in transit vehicles such as trains, buses, trams (streetcars or trolley cars) or minibus taxis, and related facilities like stations and stops, enabling mass transit systems to continue to provide this essential service. Cities will need to adapt principles from this guide to local resource constraints. Some implementation challenges and adaptations for low-resource settings are noted in the recommendations.