LAUSR

Abstract The COVID-19 outbreak has fundamentally changed how people move around and live in a city. It is reported that the virus spreads through transmission via large droplets and/or small aerosols when an infected individual coughs or sneezes or even breathes or talks near an uninfected individual. This study considers the implications of physical distancing requirements for pedestrians using urban sidewalks. Pedestrian physical distancing can be described as a mobility intervention designed to limit virus infection by keeping people, for example, 2 m apart. Physical distancing assumes that the risk of transmission declines with the distance between people, but a more sophisticated approach than the current binary approach which is simply based on a single distance may help health agencies to evaluate and monitor how well physical distancing is being achieved. The study developed pedestrian physical distancing indicators to quantitatively evaluate different levels of physical distancing and proposed levels of pedestrian physical distancing that can be used to select and implement appropriate mobility interventions. This study also developed a mathematical process to estimate the relative risk of viral transmission between pedestrians under different pedestrian walking conditions. Finally, we demonstrated the application of the proposed approach in a simulated virtual walkway environment using PTV Viswalk. We hope the study can help decision-makers in health agencies to select the most appropriate pedestrian mobility interventions for limiting spread of the virus on urban sidewalks.