Exposure risk analysis of COVID-19 for a ride-sharing motorbike taxi

A dominant mode of transmission for the respiratory disease COVID-19 is via airborne virus-carrying aerosols. As national lockdowns are lifted and people begin to travel once again, an assessment of the risk associated with different forms of public transportation is required. This paper assesses the risk of transmission in the context of a ride-sharing motorbike taxi—a popular choice of paratransit in South and South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Fluid dynamics plays a significant role in understanding the fate of droplets ejected from a susceptible individual during a respiratory event, such as coughing. Numerical simulations are employed here using an Eulerian–Lagrangian approach for particles and the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes method for the background air flow. The driver is assumed to be exhaling virus laden droplets, which are transported toward the passenger by the background flow. A single cough is simulated for particle sizes 1, 10, 50 μm, with motorbike speeds 1, 5, 15 m/s. It has been shown that small and large particles pose different types of risk. Depending on the motorbike speed, large particles may deposit onto the passenger, while smaller particles travel between the riders and may be inhaled by the passenger. To reduce risk of transmission to the passenger, a shield is placed between the riders. The shield not only acts as a barrier to block particles, but also alters the flow field around the riders, pushing particles away from the passenger. The findings of this paper therefore support the addition of a shield potentially making the journey safer.