Questions to the Mayor of London – answered at on 1 August 2019.
What does the Transport for London (TfL) cleaning regime of tube tunnels entail and is this regime applied to the whole tunnel system equally?
Transport for London (TfL) spends around £60m per annum cleaning its trains, stations and tunnels to ensure dust and particles are kept to an absolute minimum.
TfL’s Deep Tube tunnel cleaning regime includes the removal of all refuse, litter and waste material (e.g. paper, dust, grease) from the surfaces within the tunnels, cross-passages and adjoining areas. This is manually carried out, by the use of brushes, scrapers and filtered vacuum cleaners.
All London Underground tunnels are frequently inspected, and marked in terms of cleanliness. Sections which score lower in terms of cleanliness during these regular inspections are cleaned more frequently.
In addition, new cleaning methods are currently being trialled, the most effective of which will be incorporated into TfL’s cleaning regime.