No more stinky rides: How Railways plans to tackle smelly trains, stations

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

New Delhi: The Indian Railways is considering Internet of Things, new chemicals and standardised watering systems among tools to address a chronic complaint of passengers: smelly trains and station premises. A recent meeting of senior railway officials associated with maintenance and upkeep of trains discussed this issue, after the Railway Board flagged the large number of complaints that the national transporter has been getting on its platform for grievance redressal, a top government official said.

“To address the high volume of complaints regarding foul smell figuring in the Rail Madad app, the Railway Board has recommended testing new IoTbased technology for foul smell detectors,” the official told ET.

Technology developed by Viliso Technologies, a Mumbaibased startup specialising in odour monitoring, has been shortlisted for this, he said. This will be used in some coaches of the Linke Hofmann Busch and Integral Coach Factory variants to study efficacy and monitor the working of onboard housekeeping service systems. The railways is already trying to address this issue for the new premium Vande Bharat (VB) sleeper variant trains.
“The BEML-make sleeper VB trains have an ergonomically designed odour-free toilet system,” a second official said. These trains will also feature a shower with hot water in the first AC category cars.

Enroute Coach Watering

While new technologies and ergonomic designs are being adopted, conventional methods such as the use of cleaning chemicals are also seeing some innovation. In a