Collaboration with stakeholders- RSSB
In September 2023 the TRACK team took part in a dissemination workshop on the Pandemic Playbook produced by the Railway Safety and Standards Board. Dr Claire Shooter, public health manager at RSSB led the research and production of the Playbook for GB Rail- a first of its kind. The Playbook is a disease-agnostic industry guide for pandemic preparation, and members from the rail industry worked through the playbook in a table-top scenario planning session. The TRACK team presented some of the work and findings to rail industry members with presentations by: Dr Jo-Ann Pattinson on a general overview of TRACK findings and highlights from focus group and interview data, Dr Katy-ann Moseley on environmental sampling in the transport context and Dr Andrew Bate explained how TRACK used mathematical modelling to explore questions such as transmission pathways and mitigation impacts. The Playbook is free to access by registering as a user on the RSSB website here and searching for ‘Pandemic Preparedness”.
Data collection from WP4-Touch sequences of passengers on a bus
The team from Newcastle University have mapped hand-touches of passengers boarding and alighting (pictured below). Data was also collected on face touching classified by age, and mapping of the most popular seating positions taken, with passengers overwhelmingly favouring window seats towards the centre of the bus. The data collection was achieved using battery powered cameras positioned from overhead luggage.
Communicating TRACK findings – Susan presents at the National Academies workshop ‘Indoor Air Management of Airborne Pathogens: Public Transportation
Professor Susan-Grant Muller recently presented TRACK findings at the National Academies workshop ‘Indoor Air Management of Airborne Pathogens: Public Transportation’. The meeting was well attended and there were many interesting presentations from different public transport stakeholders. Recordings of all presentations can be found at the following link and it is well worth a look.
Ongoing Experiments from WP3 – Proximity detection using Bluetooth signals
The TRACK WP3 team conducted an experiment to detect proximity using Bluetooth signals in empty train carriages, following health and safety protocols.
The goal of the fieldwork is to collect measurements of distance and Bluetooth signals between prototype wearable devices and smartphones in the context of public transportation. Models were developed to detect potential “too close for too long” events. The tools and models can contribute to a better understanding of people’s public transport use, virus transmission, social distancing and crowding.
Communicating TRACK findings – Paz presents at UKHSA annual conference 2022
Paz Aranega-Bou from WP2 recently presented the findings from the surface sampling arm of TRACK at the UKHSA annual conference. Engagement of both the scientific community and industry stakeholders is important to the TRACK team and we have some exciting plans to increase the impact of our research going into 2023.
