Prague’s public transport vehicles get anti-viral coating
The Prague Public Transport Company has announced that it has started treating all public transport vehicles operating in the city with an antiviral and antibacterial nanotechnology polymer coating.
Work on treating carriages on the metro’s B line is almost finished and lines A and C will be disinfected in the coming days. All 146 metro trains will be completed by mid-April, according to the company’s spokeswoman Aneta Řeháková.
Simultaneously, work is underway on treating all busses and trams running in the city. Previously they were cleaned once a week with ozone, but conventional cleaning methods are no longer considered adequate in view of the coronavirus epidemic.
The Prague Public Transport Company will verify the effectiveness of the disinfectant every six months on randomly selected ten trams and the same number of buses and metro carriages. "If the product fails to meet the stated conditions, we will ask the supplier to repeat the treatment in all vehicles at his expense," Petr Witowski, CEO of Prague Public Transport told the media.
The disinfectant is being applied in aerosol form to all interior surfaces - handrails, seats, walls, glass, doors, ceilings and floors.
Due to the anti-coronavirus measures introduced, visibly fewer passengers are using public transport. While on March 2 over 1.1 million passengers used the Prague metro, a fortnight later it was only 310, 000 people. Prague’s trams and buses are also running half-empty.
