A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies (2021) / Chapter Skim
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18 Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions In an emergency, transportation agencies need to protect employees and customers, ensure continuity of operations, realign service to meet changes in demand, secure additional funding and assets, enhance communications with all stakeholders, and train and educate employees on response duties. All this must be accomplished while the systemic and structural resilience of the transportation system is ensured.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 19 Mission Area Play Category Play Page Preparedness Planning/Training Planning, Training, and Exercises 20 Protection/ Mitigation Employee Impact Employee Impact 22 Protective Actions Pandemic Protective Actions Pandemic Public Transit Protective Actions 24 26 Situational Awareness Situational Awareness and Reporting 30 Communications Communications Restore Public Confidence 34 38 Response Actions Traffic Management Service Operations Adjustments 40 42 Evacuations/Shelterin-Place Pandemic Impact 46 Financial Financial Management 48 Emergency Support Function 1 and Community Support Agency Stabilization 50 52 Lessons Learned ALL Multiple Events Concurrent Emergencies with Pandemics 55 Response Recovery Table 6. Plays by mission area and category.
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20 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Improve and Update Planning • Pandemic plans (who does what) are a variation of existing plans such as the COOP and emergency response plans.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 21 The Colorado DOT completed a tabletop exercise early in the pandemic considering responsibilities and authorities and anticipating issues ranging from making sure to protect personally identifiable information when reporting health statistics to recommendations regarding PPE. Caltrans conducted an exercise regarding distribution of elements of the Strategic National Stockpile.
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22 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Employee health and safety are paramount in a pandemic. Like other events, pandemics impact employees' availability for work because of family circumstances, illness, and safety.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 23 The Kansas DOT reported that a significant number of employees have spouses who are essential service workers, some of whom are frequently exposed to COVID. To accommodate their needs, the organization expanded the availability of telework.25 The Vermont Agency of Transportation (Vermont AOT)
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24 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview During a pandemic, voluntary or mandatory protective actions may be required to ensure the safety of employees and passengers. Because employees' work requirements may differ, different types of protective actions may be necessary.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 25 and follow regular handwashing and sanitation measures. Make sure you have a clear policy and enforcement guidelines for employees.
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26 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview To ensure the safety of employees and passengers, voluntary or mandatory protective actions may be required. For the COVID19 pandemic, public health authorities recommended for transit the universal use of masks (PPE)
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 27 Social Distancing • Carefully establish and communicate social distancing policies with staff and passengers. • Enforcing social distancing requires information and agility.
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28 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies extend to train operators and station attendants; extending such protocols models appro priate behavior to the public. • Protect the bus operator from infection through social distancing: – Implement reardoor boarding.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 29 • Contactless access can reduce the spread of disease. Evaluate options for reducing or eliminating passenger contact with surfaces, for example, by temporarily eliminating fare collection until alternate means of collection are established.
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30 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Situational awareness allows the organization to understand the existing environment in which it works, comprehend the current situation, and project appropriate actions for the future. Although maintaining situational awareness presents a significant challenge during emergencies and crises, it provides an essential common view for the organization to develop and use for decisions up and down the line.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 31 Source: Caltrans. Figure 7.
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32 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies • Strategize and consider options for quick adjustments to routes should illness among your staff increase. • Watch for emerging issues in equipment availability due to maintenance issues, lack of spare parts, or other logistic considerations.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 33 Source: Vermont Agency of Transportation. Figure 8.
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34 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Clear, consistent messaging across levels of government and organizations is crucial for agency credibility and for public and employee confidence and compliance. During events, regular communications keep the agencies' partners, press, and public informed and address rumor control.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 35 With Executive Leadership • Jointly establish routines for ongoing communications so leaders know what to expect and when. • Use key indicators or dashboards to reflect status.
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36 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies With Other Organizations • Keep current with public health guidance and leadership policies for your area. • Changes in the policies and procedures of others can change your requirements.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 37 State DOTs • Use variable message signs for public health messages in compliance with the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) .52 • Notify travelers if there is a mandatory mask order in your state and about other highway travel restrictions, such as an area closed to traffic as a result of quarantine or other actions.
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38 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Employees, customers and the general public may fear returning to the workplace; resuming riding buses or trains; and resuming interactions with coworkers, eating in restaurants, and other facets of everyday life. Those who are in highrisk health categories or have family members at high risk may be particularly concerned.
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APTA developed a Health and Safety Commitments Program (Figure 11) that identified four key areas that transit systems need to address to earn riders' confidence: – Following public health guidelines from official sources, – Cleaning and disinfecting transit vehicles frequently and requiring face coverings and other protections, – Keeping passengers informed and empowered to choose the safest times and routes to ride, and – Putting health first by requiring riders and employees to avoid public transit if they have been exposed to COVID-19 or feel ill.
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40 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Pandemics can disrupt community life by causing changes in commuting patterns; closures of schools, stores, and gathering places; and creating the need for new services that disrupt traffic management, such as testing or distribution centers. Traffic monitoring at state borders and enforcement of local quarantines can interrupt normal traffic flow.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 41 Many state and local transportation organizations use signage, traffic barriers, and cones to facilitate traffic flow at COVID testing sites (Figure 12) .61 The Florida DOT provided traffic management around virus testing sites and reduced construction projects around hospitals.62 Westchester County, New York, used traffic management to isolate a quarantine area in New Rochelle.63 The Kansas DOT used lessons from agricultural exercises regarding cattle/stock state quarantines to facilitate its preparedness for border screening if needed.64 Many DOTs used dynamic message signs to share recommendations on restricting travel to essential purposes.
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42 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview During a pandemic, it is critical to continuously monitor and dynamically adjust service and operations in response to both passenger demand and operator and vehicle supply and capacity. Demand can change dramatically: passenger volumes by time of day, definitions and require ments for essential travel, and passenger trip patterns.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 43 network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft for lowdensity or latenight service with accessible paratransit as an oncall backup.
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44 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Oahu Transit, Hawaii, uses dynamic scheduling to adjust buses and routes depending on need. Drivers are trained on multiple lines and can be shifted as needed during the day.
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Source: American Public Transportation Association. Figure 13.
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46 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Certain events, such as hurricanes, wildfires, and major flooding, require people to evacuate their current locations and move to safer ones. Evacuations -- moving large populations outside their communities -- can spread the risks of infection during a pandemic.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 47 • Ensure that people feel comfortable that the risk of the pandemic at mass shelter locations is lower than the risk of loss of life by staying home during the event. You must present a unified message that people's health and safety is the primary consideration -- safety from the event and safety from infection.
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48 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Pandemics can have broadranging impacts on the financial aspects of an agency, ranging from the tracking and documentation necessary for reimbursement of emergency responses, to immediate loss of agency revenue (tolls, fares, sales tax, and related revenues) as travel shuts down, to the longterm impacts of potentially reduced federal, state, and local funding and business demand as the economy settles into an altered state.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 49 The Vermont AOT and others established accounting function codes for time, expenses, and resources for the pandemic early on, thereby avoiding backtracking and recoding later (Figure 14) .79 The Utah DOT "doubled down on construction" to take advantage of reduced traffic on highways.80 The Maryland DOT completed the most complex rebuild of the heavily trafficked Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel 1 year early due to expedited construction during the reduced traffic resulting from the pandemic.81 Charlevoix County Transit maintained fare revenue by using community contracts, such as with the Charlevoix County Commission on Aging and the school district, to provide contracted fare payment for affiliated riders.82 Multiple highway agencies are using online and e-payment for tolls and department of motor vehicle processes.
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50 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Transportation's role in the National Response Framework86 requires state DOTs and transit organizations, among others, to support the community with resources and services. During a pandemic, this support can take a different shape than most disasters.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 51 The governor of Florida tasked the Florida DOT with screening visitors coming into the state, first at seaports and airports, then arriving by road from adjoining states at one phase of the pandemic. The agency transitioned truck inspection waypoints into screening areas for passenger cars and waved all trucks through.
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52 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies Overview Because pandemics can last for months or longer, an initial agency emergency response cannot be sustained for the long term. Developing a stabilization approach, strategy, and plan that address when and how an agency can return to more stabilized operations can allow the organization to fulfill its mission over the longer term during a pandemic.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 53 The Utah DOT created a "return to office" or stabilization plan based on the colorcoded phases (orange, yellow, green) in the Utah governor's guidelines.
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Source: Regional Transit District, Denver. Figure 15.
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Emergency Management Plays: Approaches and Solutions 55 PLAY: Concurrent Emergencies with Pandemics MISSION AREA MODE EVENTS All All Pandemic Plus Hurricane, Wildfire, Flooding, Other Disasters ALL Overview The longlasting nature of pandemics means one or more other major emergency events may also occur. Interconnected events are not simply additive; they create complications and stressors greater than the sum of the parts.
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56 A Pandemic Playbook for Transportation Agencies • Coordinate fleet movements (such as power and communications restoration crews) for response and recovery with the utility fleets and with other DOTs (e.g., via the nonprofit All Hazards Consortium)
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