How Moscow metro disinfects ventilation shafts and tunnels

The Moscow metro disinfected 552 ventilation shafts and more than 960 km of tunnels since the end of March.

“The metro is subject to daily disinfection efforts, which include adding antiseptic to air heaters. We use special rail track cleaning devices to disinfect tunnels. Previously, they operated on water, but now we add antiseptic too. All this is being done to protect the health of our passengers,” Deputy Mayor and Head of the Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Maxim Liksutov said.

More than 2,000 employees contribute to cleaning and disinfecting all metro platforms in Moscow, washing all surfaces every other hour.

At night all passenger areas, including entrance halls, platforms and ticket barriers are sprayed with disinfectant using hot air generators. This is a time-effective method that helps cover large surfaces and hard-to-reach places. For example, one heat pump can disinfect an area of 2,500 square metres within one hour.

In addition to this, markings in trains, metro entrance halls and on the platforms will help people respect social distancing requirements.

On 12 May, employees of industrial and construction companies returned to work in Moscow. The main condition for firms resuming operations is that they must strictly abide by the sanitary and epidemiological requirements. Only employees who, for technical reasons, need to be present in workshops, offices or on construction sites are allowed to go to work. Those who can work remotely will still have to stay at home.

To protect themselves and those around them, people have to wear face masks, respirators or other respiratory protective equipment, as well as gloves, in shops, shopping centres, at work, on transport and in taxis. The requirement to maintain a social distance of 1.5 metres also remains in place.