LONDON: In a sign that pandemic may leave a lasting impact on taxis, British cab company Addison Lee has announced it will keep partition screens between drivers and passengers until at least next summer.
The minicab firm began installing the screens to its fleet of 4,000 vehicles in May 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Partitions are already an everyday sight in London's black cabs, where a large rear is separated off from the front by a sheet of hard plastic.
And yet they are less familiar for everyday cab drivers in London and many other parts of the planet, where passengers traditionally share the same interior.
In an effort to protect driver and passengers, taxi drivers from Beijing to New York separated the front and back into two separate bubbles with a layer of soft plastic taped around the driver's seat, from the roof to the console. Others have had their cabs fitted with Plexiglas partitions.
Now, after parts of Britain have relaxed coronavirus restrictions, Addison Lee chief executive Liam Griffin has said safety is the company's "number one priority" and that the company "will continue to lead the industry in hygiene and safety and do all we can to ensure that Londoners have access to clean and safe transport options."
"Our partition screens have protected thousands of passengers and drivers over the course of the pandemic," Griffin said.
Addison Lee said it expects drivers and passengers to continue to wear face coverings, after the government lifted the legal requirement to wear them in certain settings in England last week.
