2025/11/09 by Gerhard Hiermann, Hiermann, Gerhard, Jinchen Ji +6
Engineering · Mathematics · Social Sciences · #COVID-19 epidemiological studies #Dilemma #Evacuation and Crowd Dynamics #FOS: Electrical engineering #FOS: Physical sciences #Offset (computer science) #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Psychological intervention #Public health #Public health interventions #Public transport #Systems and Control (eess.SY) #Urban Transport and Accessibility #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.06377
openalex publication_date 2025/11/09 · openalex created_date 2025/11/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Epidemics expose critical tensions between protecting public health and maintaining essential urban mobility. Public transport systems face this dilemma most acutely: they enable access to jobs, education, and services, yet also facilitate close contact among travelers. We develop an integrated modeling framework that couples agent-based epidemic simulation (EpiSim) with an optimization-based public transport flow model under capacity constraints. Using Munich as a case study, we analyze how combinations of facility closures and transport restrictions shape epidemic outcomes and accessibility. The results reveal three key insights. First, epidemic interventions redistribute rather than simply reduce infection risks, shifting transmission to households. Second, epidemic and transport policies interact nonlinearly - moderate demand suppression can offset large capacity cuts. Third, epidemic pressures amplify temporal and spatial inequalities, disproportionately affecting peripheral and peak-hour travelers. These findings highlight that blanket restrictions are both inefficient and inequitable, calling for targeted, time- and space-differentiated measures to build epidemic-resilient and socially fair transport systems.