By Steve Warburton

“Go to work, don’t go to work, don’t use public transport and, er, something else.” So said Matt Lucas in his well-viewed spoof of Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on 10th May. There are times when you just despair and this is definitely one of them!

Let us leave aside that, so we are told, when the PM said on Sunday ‘go back to work tomorrow’, he really meant Wednesday (Monday’s version) and wasn’t in any case expecting a flood of people returning to work (Tuesday’s version). This is about public transport. Just in England. Mainly.

The theory is that people should avoid public transport, but for the few who do use it they should wear face coverings (the word ‘covering’ quickly replaced ‘mask’ as the latter are needed for the health sector), adopt social distancing and services will be increased so that loadings are as low as possible. It’s a surreal World at the moment.

However, despite what elements of the press have reported, PT users have not been ‘told’ to wear face coverings at all. The official words from Downing Street were “It is advice, so we are publishing that today and it is for the public to judge whether or not this is something they want to follow. It is not something that is part of the regulations, i.e. you won’t be fined for not wearing a face mask.” Even British Transport Police is ambiguous: “In line with government guidance, you may see our officers wearing face coverings when on routine patrol. They’ll be wearing them when they themselves feel it is necessary…”

So we know for definite about social distancing at least, don’t we? Monday’s generic 50-page document told us that: “Social distancing guidance on public transport must be followed rigorously.” But that was before the ‘Guidance to Operators ^[1]’ was published on Tuesday, which was decidedly more ‘elastic’ in its instructions – “There are situations where this may not be possible, for example when boarding or alighting, during security checks, on busier services, busier times of day.”

My interpretation of that is: “Practice social distancing on public transport unless there are too many people on board” or when there is, as Grant Shapps MP said on Tuesday: “the space to maintain social distancing as far as possible.” His colleague Robert Jenrick MP noted today in response to comments about overcrowding (in the Covid era sense) that “You should be taking precautions like social distancing if you can – I appreciate that isn’t always possible and some of the scenes… show buses and Tubes too full to be able to sit two metres apart and that’s a problem.” Problem it may be, but not big on solutions. Boris, so he said, does not want to see crowding on public transport, the cynical answer would suggest he’d achieve that by turning his back.

This is not an issue unique to the UK, of course. Similar issues have arisen in both Australia and Switzerland, while there were complaints in Dublin that passengers were sitting in the seats marked ‘don’t sit here’ intended to maintain social distancing. The Devutopia blog contains a brief and timely explanation of why the rush to buses and the Tube in London has resumed – related to where workers can afford to live in Greater London and why it’s impractical to walk or cycle into the centre ^[2]. Ironically, because TfL has ceased taking fares in order to protect its staff, it makes bus travel a more attractive option. Out in the real World, as passengers return, drivers in sealed cabs can’t hear what passengers are asking for!

Photo Terry McCarthy on Twitter with permission.

The position on one of social distancing’s sacred cows also seems to have changed in any case. Two weeks ago a senior medic questioned the source and validity of the ‘two metre rule’ and in yesterday’s ‘Guidance to Operators’ we find that “this is not a rule and the science is complex. The key thing is to not be too close to people for more than a short amount of time, as much as you can.” The World Health Organisation has its own guidance ^[3], based on a ‘one metre rule’, but not once on board. WHO guidance is more stringent on touching surfaces and suggests using a disposable tissue as a barrier, although its advice to ‘avoid touching handrails’ raises other safety implications! Human factors do, of course, come into play too, as Dr Hans Kluge of WHO noted: “Reports of distrust in authorities and conspiracy thinking are fuelling movements against physical distancing, other people are behaving over-cautiously.”

Which leaves the ‘ramping up’ of services. Sending people back to work at half a day or three days’ notice left no realistic time for operators to adjust very much at all, although no doubt it will be all their fault for not doubling frequencies with a click of the fingers. I’ll leave that response to our friends at Nottingham City Transport: “It will take time to implement these requirements and with the majority of our buses delicensed and currently unavailable for use and 75% of our employees furloughed, any changes to service levels are likely to be gradual and in line with the ‘road map’ set out by the Prime Minister.” Nobody can fault the operators for feeling frustrated. I could easily imagine the first draft of that NCT press release being littered with expletives!

There has been the inevitable concentration on events in the Capital, but what of the scores of operators of school contracts across England baffled by the plans for a partial return to school on 1st June, with ‘staggered’ start and finish times. Their buses and staff are probably in a situation akin to those at NCT. It seems social distancing is anathema once in the classroom but not on the transport to and from. How, in three weeks’ time, will every local authority in England sort out staggered, socially-distanced transport for maybe 20% of pupils? If, of course, their parents let them return. This is veering into Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Well before Boris’ Sunday address, Christian Wolmar published his thoughts on post-lockdown public transport ^[4] where he concluded that policing numbers on peak hour trains or the Tube was simply not practical. I agree – and I add buses to that conclusion. Who is around to supervise numbers in all carriages of a twelve car Thameslink train staffed only by a driver ‘up front’? What bus driver in charge of a 75-seat double-deck with only twenty ‘socially distanced’ seats is going to risk a confrontation with passenger number twenty one who wants to get on? Will the granny with her shopping be told she can either go upstairs or wait half an hour for the next bus when there are empty seats downstairs? Will he or she really get out of the cab and go upstairs to say ‘you can’t sit there’? Of course not and moreover, we should neither ask, nor expect them to.

We have a classic clash of remote theory with on-street practicality. Home-working, ‘Zoom’ broadcasting theorists saying a bus has only 15% of its pre-Covid capacity when it blatantly hasn’t. What use is saying ‘don’t use public transport’ when urban society depends on it to function? Fundamentally, public transport and social distancing are incompatible. We should accept it and live with it – as indeed lots of urban dwellers seem to have done this week, whether willingly or not. If this is too risky then there should be no return to even partial ‘normal life’. Mister Reality needs to be brave enough to stand up and say so.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884370/coronavirus-covid-19-safer-transport-guidance-for-operators.pdf

[2] https://dravalblog.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/why-you-keep-seeing-scenes-of-crowded-buses-and-tubes-in-london/

[3]https://who.canto.global/pdfviewer/viewer/viewer.html?v=coronavirus&portalType=v%2Fcoronavirus&share=share%2Calbum%2CMFSQ0&column=document&id=m19hqak58l2rt8h4v97hdadk5b&suffix=pdf

[4] http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2020/04/pandemic-risks-wrecking-public-transport/