Solving cleanliness Issues in the Transport Sector

Solving cleanliness Issues in the Transport Sector | Ensuring cleanliness in the transport sector is crucial for several reasons: 

1. Health and Safety Compliance Keeping things clean isn’t just for appearance, it’s crucial for health and safety. When we keep our transport facilities clean, we’re ensuring the well-being of passengers and staff, making sure everyone stays healthy and safe. Regular cleaning helps to stop the spread of germs and viruses, cutting down on illness.Safety Challenges: Maintaining these standards can be challenging as you’ll also need to consider potential hazards, like hidden sharps (needles or broken glass). To ensure proper disposal employees need to wear appropriate PPE and to avoid direct contact, use tools such as grabbers and tongs and then following the appropriate disposal procedures. Another aspect to ensure safety is inspections of  high-risk areas such as construction zones or high-traffic areas to identify and mitigate any potential hazards. There should also be efficient documentation & reporting of incidents, this helps maintain cleaning and decency standards and ensures accountability and effective communication among the teams.
2. and get regular training for disposal procedures.

2. Public Perception and Satisfaction The cleanliness of public transport hubs and vehicles significantly impacts public perception. A clean environment enhances passenger comfort and satisfaction, which is vital for maintaining the reputation of service providers. Negative perceptions due to poor cleanliness can be detrimental to a transport operator’s image and customer trust.

3. Operational Efficiency Clean and well-maintained facilities and vehicles contribute to operational efficiency. Regular cleaning reduces the need for costly repairs and extends the longevity of infrastructure and equipment. Additionally, clean, and organised spaces minimise disruptions, leading to smoother operations and fewer delays caused by dirt and clutter.

4. Environmental Impact Using eco-friendly cleaning products and practices helps reduce the environmental footprint of transport operations. Proper waste management and sustainable cleaning methods are essential for minimising pollution and promoting a greener transport sector. Specifically challenges with th

In summary, cleanliness in the transport sector is not just about aesthetics; it plays a critical role in health and safety, public perception, operational efficiency, and environmental sustainability. Ensuring high standards of cleanliness is fundamental to providing a safe, comfortable, and efficient travel experience for everyone. 

Seating Upholstery | Aisle Cleaning | Footwell space 

Now we recognise that maintaining cleanliness is paramount in the transport sector, let’s delve into solving cleanliness Issues in the Transport Sector

Regular/ Daily Cleaning 

Public transport vehicles, such as trains and buses, receive regular cleaning, including wiping down armrests and vacuuming seats. 

Using an industrial-style vacuum, like the Victor Cordless Back Vacuum, is recommended for cleaning between seats and down aisles. A cordless solution enhances accessibility to tight spaces and allows for flexible movement. Additionally, a backpack vacuum offers excellent mobility and reduces strain on the user, improving overall efficiency. 

One specific benefit of using the Victor Back Vacuum is its high-comfort harness. When used for prolonged periods, ensuring comfort is crucial not only for user satisfaction but also for their health and safety. Although the Victor Back Vacuum is designed to be super light at 7kg, the machine will eventually be filled, adding additional weight. Over time, this could cause discomfort, which is why the padded harness provides essential support. 

To optimise performance further, it is important to have the right accessories for the vacuum. For detailed cleaning, you will need brushes and crevice tools to ensure thorough and effective cleaning.  

While vacuuming is great for removing loose dirt and debris, achieving a deeper clean requires the use of moisture. This can be challenging due to the obstructions posed by seats, tables, and the typically narrow aisles of trains and buses. Although a mop can be useful in such environments, a scrubber dryer offers a quicker and more effective cleaning solution.

At Victor we learnt that many manufacturers create large machines for large spaces but reaching those smaller confined areas is as important to achieve a completely clean environment. The Victor Hyperglideis our favourite solution for this, the same look and size as an upright vacuum, but in the form of a scrubber dryer.

For those hard-to-reach areas, the Victor Mini Scrubber can be used to clean underneath and around seating, in any tight space. Completely versatile, the Mini Scrubber features adjustable handles, handheld functionality, and interchangeable cleaning heads. There’s also an extendable long reach handle, this is great if you’re not able to get close to the area you’re cleaning. Or so users won’t have to bend down to clean low level areas.

(Example of the Mini Scrubber being used by a customer in the Transport sector)

Periodic Deep-Clean

When it comes to period cleaning of seating, we recommend using a steam cleaner, this will penetrate the fabric, effectively removing germs, stains, and bacteria. Another benefit of using a steam cleaner is that it does not involve any harsh chemicals which contributes to sustainability efforts.
Victor provides two variants of commercial steam cleaners, the SL8000 and the Steam Extractor.
The SL8000 combine HEPA vacuumation with steam to remove dirt and water, leaving surfaces clean, dry, and sanitised. Keeping your seats dry is important, especially if they can’t air dry naturally. Any leftover moisture could lead to mould, leaving the seats in a worse condition than prior to cleaning. The use of the HEPA filter helps to remove any dust, pollen, mould and bacteria particles from the air, which reduces the risk of viral infection.
For a slightly more powerful steamer, Victor supplies the Steam Extractor. Although this does not include vacuumation, it does have a slightly higher temperature of steam.

Transport Hubs | Train Stations & Bus Stations

Transport infrastructure in the UK often lacks essential maintenance and repairs. Public funding is limited, and like other sectors such as healthcare and highway maintenance, there isn’t always enough money to cover all needs. This can lead to various issues and deteriorating conditions. Even with £36 billion reallocated from HS2 into various transport projects, funding remains insufficient.

Aging infrastructure, poor drainage systems, and severe weather at train and bus stations can sometimes result in leaks. And limited funding can delay those essential repairs. And it’s getting to that time of year where we’ll unfortunately but definitely see rain.

For a short-term solution, Victor has produced the innovative SlipStop®. The SlipStop® range features a wide funnel leak collector that efficiently gathers water from leaks while also serving as a high-visibility wet floor sign, minimising slip hazards.

Given the pressures of ensuring health and safety, the SlipStop® is an excellent temporary fix. Using a bucket to catch leaks can be a tripping hazard, especially in high-traffic areas during peak times. A bucket might not be visible and could result in a passenger or employee sustaining an injury.

Watch the video below to learn more:

Flooring in High-Traffic Areas

Train stations and airports experience exceptionally high levels of foot traffic, especially during peak times when passengers are commuting to and from work or school. This means floors are exposed to a variety of contaminants, including food, drink spills, oil, and litter. Cleaners must ensure these high-traffic areas receive extra attention and remain free of significant obstructions. Maintaining slip resistance is also crucial to ensure passenger safety.
Littering, particularly with chewing gum, is an ongoing issue, costing the UK government £7 million per year to clean streets and public spaces. Besides being unsightly, chewing gum is also a nuisance to clean. We recommend using a steam cleaner combined with a flat-edged scraping attachment. The Victor SL8000 is an excellent solution, as it comes with a full range of attachments for scraping the floor. Additionally, the SL8000 includes HEPA vacuumation, ensuring the flooring is left completely dry. The steam from the machine helps to soften the gum, breaking down the adhesive properties, making it easier to lift from the floor surface.

For general cleaning, an industrial scrubber dryer is recommended for floor maintenance. Manual methods, such as mopping, are often ineffective, leaving water behind, restricting the user, and wasting time and energy. In high-traffic areas, it’s almost unavoidable to have people walking across the floor during cleaning and leaving the floor wet is a hazard to passengers but also can make the floor dirtier, because people will then tread the dirt from their shoes onto the wet floor.

Victor supplies a range of high-performance scrubber dryers that are uniquely compact. These machines are designed to cover as much floor space as larger models but in a smaller form factor, making them excellent for use in large spaces without creating obstructions, as well as in small spaces like corridors.

When choosing a scrubber dryer, it’s important to ensure it has sufficient vacuumation to collect the water left behind. The Victor range offers a unique benefit with the placement of the squeegee at the back of the machine, this helps remove water from the floor more effectively—a feature not commonly found in the market.

Another advantage is user functionality. Like much of the Victor range, these machines are designed to be used by anyone with basic training. In the cleaning industry, it’s common for companies to employ agency or inexperienced staff. The industry also employs a higher percentage of non-British workers (21%) compared to the average across all employment sectors (18%). This means English may not be the first language for some users. Therefore, it’s important that machines can be easily understood on their first use which also saves time & money.

Green Cleaning Practices

Sustainability has become a key objective for many organisations, including those in the transport sector. Increasingly, there is pressure to adopt sustainable practices due to the significant impact of customer demand. This can be a decisive factor in whether people choose one company’s products and services over another’s.
Sustainability in cleaning can be introduced with a variety of practices. Northern Rail has been working to reduce their single-use plastics by installing cleaning solution fill stations across their network, cutting down the number of bottles used by 9,000 annually. In 2023. In terms of their cleaning solution, they also introduced ‘Clean Zero’—a chemical-free cleaner created by re-engineering water through a seven-stage filtration process. This solution is now used across their fleet of 345 trains.
Stopping or reducing the use of chemicals in cleaning is becoming a popular method for implementing sustainable practices. And one of the reasons why Victor introduced the Oscillating machines to the product range. The Ocelot 400 and Ocelot 400 Plus, were created to enable cleaning with 0% chemical, providing an intense clean with water alone. The rectangular-shaped pad driver at the base of the machine offers 3000 rounds of 7mm cleaning action per minute. Another unique benefit of this machine is the ability to clean textured flooring. Specifically, safety flooring features indentations & grooves which can be notoriously difficult to clean. The Ocelot’s penetrate these grooves removing the embedded dirt and debris.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we hope that this article sheds light on some of the key issues for cleaning within the Transport sector and how they can be solved when you’re using the right cleaning products.

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