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Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing

Many airlines instituted social distancing practices to keep passengers safe during the pandemic. The practices include keeping the middle seats empty, reducing the number of passengers taking an apron bus from the terminal to the airplane, and prescribing that passengers maintain 1 m social distanc...

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Autores principales: Milne, R. John, Cotfas, Liviu-Adrian, Delcea, Camelia, Crăciun, Liliana, Molănescu, Anca Gabriela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9342771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35913941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271544
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author Milne, R. John
Cotfas, Liviu-Adrian
Delcea, Camelia
Crăciun, Liliana
Molănescu, Anca Gabriela
author_facet Milne, R. John
Cotfas, Liviu-Adrian
Delcea, Camelia
Crăciun, Liliana
Molănescu, Anca Gabriela
author_sort Milne, R. John
collection PubMed
description Many airlines instituted social distancing practices to keep passengers safe during the pandemic. The practices include keeping the middle seats empty, reducing the number of passengers taking an apron bus from the terminal to the airplane, and prescribing that passengers maintain 1 m social distance of separation from other passengers in the aisle while advancing to their seats. However, not all passengers comply with a prescribed 1 m aisle social distance. Through agent-based simulations of passenger boarding when apron buses are used, we examine boarding policies adapted for the pandemic when the level of passenger compliance varies. To compare policies, we consider the duration of time that passengers are too close to other passengers while walking or standing in the aisle. We consider other health metrics from previous research and the time to complete boarding of the airplane. We find that the WilMA–Spread and Reverse-pyramid–Spread boarding methods provide favorable outcomes. Airlines should use WilMA–Spread if their primary concern is the risk to passengers while walking down the aisle and Reverse-pyramid–Spread if they want faster times to complete boarding of the airplane and reduced risk to aisle seat passengers from later boarding passengers. The level of the passengers’ non-compliance with the prescribed aisle social distance can impact a health metric by up to 6.75%—depending on the boarding method and metric. However, non-compliance reduces the time to complete boarding of the airplane by up to 38.8% even though it increases the average time an individual passenger spends boarding.
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spelling pubmed-93427712022-08-02 Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing Milne, R. John Cotfas, Liviu-Adrian Delcea, Camelia Crăciun, Liliana Molănescu, Anca Gabriela PLoS One Research Article Many airlines instituted social distancing practices to keep passengers safe during the pandemic. The practices include keeping the middle seats empty, reducing the number of passengers taking an apron bus from the terminal to the airplane, and prescribing that passengers maintain 1 m social distance of separation from other passengers in the aisle while advancing to their seats. However, not all passengers comply with a prescribed 1 m aisle social distance. Through agent-based simulations of passenger boarding when apron buses are used, we examine boarding policies adapted for the pandemic when the level of passenger compliance varies. To compare policies, we consider the duration of time that passengers are too close to other passengers while walking or standing in the aisle. We consider other health metrics from previous research and the time to complete boarding of the airplane. We find that the WilMA–Spread and Reverse-pyramid–Spread boarding methods provide favorable outcomes. Airlines should use WilMA–Spread if their primary concern is the risk to passengers while walking down the aisle and Reverse-pyramid–Spread if they want faster times to complete boarding of the airplane and reduced risk to aisle seat passengers from later boarding passengers. The level of the passengers’ non-compliance with the prescribed aisle social distance can impact a health metric by up to 6.75%—depending on the boarding method and metric. However, non-compliance reduces the time to complete boarding of the airplane by up to 38.8% even though it increases the average time an individual passenger spends boarding. Public Library of Science 2022-08-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9342771/ /pubmed/35913941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271544 Text en © 2022 Milne et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Milne, R. John
Cotfas, Liviu-Adrian
Delcea, Camelia
Crăciun, Liliana
Molănescu, Anca Gabriela
Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing
title Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing
title_full Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing
title_fullStr Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing
title_full_unstemmed Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing
title_short Health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing
title_sort health risks of airplane boarding methods with apron buses when some passengers disregard safe social distancing
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9342771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35913941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271544
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