ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Cleaning contracts for the entire Paris transport network are worth €80 million a year, reports French correspondent Christian Bouzols.

Cleaning operations for the whole RATP network (tubes, busses, trams and their stations) in Paris represent a market worth €80 million a year. This is the money required for the maintenance of 1.3 millions square metres in 369 stations and approximately 1,000 trains.

“Cleaning is quite a priority for us because it’s a matter about which passengers care a lot,” explains Jean Baranger, manager for cleaning contracts at the RATP.

In order to carry out these large scale duties, the RATP calls on the services of five major cleaning contractors, who share this heavy workload. In all, 1,200 cleaners work every day to keep the métros in a pristine condition.

Three cleaning levels

The stations are cleaned on three levels, adds Baranger. The daily cleaning, which consists in sweeping all areas and emptying waste bins. The “asset cleaning”, which is carried out once or twice a month in every station. This type of cleaning is more in depth and done usually at night, when the trains aren’t running, and involves the use of scaffolding to wash the walls.

And finally there are the concentrated and thorough cleaning operations, called “coups de propre”, which include improving the appearance of stations and changing the lights.

As regards the trains, the operations are more or less similar, with cleaning being done every day when the trains are at the terminal, and every month, when they get a more in depth clean-up and the trains pass through “washing machines” at the RATP workshops.

On the 90 trains of the RER A, which is one of the most busy lines of the Paris underground and railway network and is run jointly by the RATP and the SNCF, it has been decided to call on passengers to help with cleaning by means of a smartphone application called “Mon RER A” (My RER A).

A call to passengers

The screen displays a form on which the passenger can describe the problem (such as “broken glass”, “litter” or “stains”) and take a photo. The application then guides the passenger in supplying details on the location of the problem, the coach number, the train route and the nearest station, which will trigger the speedy intervention of the RATP Line A cleaning services. From any point of view, this is a most efficient solution, allowing for near real time cleaning interventions.