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Poo Particles on Public Transport

Samples from seats and railings might have you bringing bacterial wipes the next time your travel Faecal matter, sweat, dead skin and fatty acids have all been found where we sit and lean on public transport. Last week, we were surprised to learn of Naomi Campbell’s hygiene routine before she travelled on a plane.  The Supermodel went through a rigorous wipe down of surfaces with anti-bacterial wipes, much to the amusement of social media. However, we might all be carrying our own pack of disinfectant soon thanks to an experiment carried out by reporter Kim Buckley for the Moncrieff Show on Newstalk. Armed with contact slides, she swabbed the seats and rails of Dublin Bus, the LUAS and the DART. Testing the random incubated samples, Environmental Microbiologist Ronnie Russell discovered large numbers of colonies of microbes and yeast. Most of the samples contained Staphylococcus and Micrococcus luteus which are types of bacteria, usually transferred from people’s sweat and flaked off dead skin. More worrying, the train, bus and trams all had evidence of Faecal material on the seats. The Enterobacteria mostly cause intestinal upset are responsible for a variety of human illnesses, including urinary tract infections, wound infections, gastroenteritis, meningitis, septicaemia, and pneumonia. The random samples taken on Thursday found that the LUAS had the highest number of cultures of bacteria on that day. The faecal matter can be transferred in a variety of ways, including a leaking nappy and people placing their feet on seats. Speaking to members of the public about the worst things that they have seen on public transport, Newstalk found one man who complained witnessing a couple having sex on the way to Malahide, while another passenger says he suffered watching someone urinate between carriages on the DART. When asked about the experiment revealed a spokesperson for Transdev who operate the LUAS said: “Luas trams are cleaned on a daily basis before entering passenger service. Customers are not allowed to put their feet on the seats and we have notices displayed where seats face each other to this effect. A recent customer etiquette campaign also highlighted (among other customer etiquette issues) people putting their feet on seats. When soilage is reported to us, the tram can be taken out of service allowing the area to be deep-cleaned. We encourage customers to always report soilage and litter to us so we can respond as quickly as possible”. Irish Rail says that they deep clean their trains every six weeks, and the interiors are cleaned daily: “All DART carriages have an overnight interior floor, panels and seating clean each night to ensure cleanliness is maintained on board. Furthermore, there is a six-week cycle through which the fleet goes which sees each carriage get a deep clean and vacuum once every six weeks. Feet on seats is something which we alert customers to for the very reason that shoes walking on city streets are exposed to all materials - we have issued penalty fines to people who do this. On the specific incidents mentioned (which are thankfully isolated) we are about to launch our new text alert service which will allow customers discretely report anti-social behaviour to a live-monitored security centre.” Dublin Bus hoovers buses daily, and does a ‘mini dee clean’ every fortnight: “Dublin Bus operates a fleet of 1,000 buses with more than 400,000 customer journeys a day. In 2018, we carried 143 million customers. Dublin Bus has strict maintenance and cleaning procedures in place. Vehicles are cleaned and vacuumed internally and washed externally on a daily basis before entering service. In addition to this a mini deep clean is undertaken, on all vehicles, on a two week cycle and a full deep clean is undertaken on a four week cycle in which internal surfaces and hand poles are washed and disinfected. All protocols and procedures are regularly reviewed.”       see more