L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad Limited (L&TMRH) has become India’s first metro rail to introduce ozone-based sanitisation of its train coaches. On Tuesday, it introduced three portable Ozycare Mobizone units to sanitise coaches to build confidence among passengers for safe travels amid COVID-19 pandemic.
Sanitisation of air and surface by ozone has been widely used in hospitals, healthcare, food processing facilities, and for disinfection of water. These units have been introduced after rigorous testing on various metro coaches for the past few months and this was followed by testing the efficacy of the sanitisation by a NABL-accredited lab, said an official release.
“These units are robust enough to neutralise more than 99% of pathogens both from the surface and air within the train coaches. We hope this would infuse a sense of confidence among passengers, making them choose the metro as their preferred mode of city commute during the ongoing pandemic,” said L&TMRH CEO and managing director K.V.B. Reddy.
As per the sanitisation protocol of this machine, the ozone cycle lasts for less than 10 minutes followed by an ozone destruction cycle that ensures post sanitisation safety as per Occupational Safety and Health Administration norms. During this period, this machine sanitises the entire coach.
Currently, the Ozycare Mobizone units are being used at the metro depots for disinfecting the metro coaches. These units are add-ons to the regular rigorous manual sanitisation, which takes place across the metro network and even penetrates the gaps and hidden crevices that are hard to sanitise, he said.
The sanitation is safe and Hyderabad Metro Rail has already ramped up COVID-19 safety protocols through rigorous monitoring and implementation of the safety guidelines. Passengers are mandated to keep wearing masks all the time, focus on social distancing, and mandatory thermal screening before entering the metro premises, added the release.
