Sun Tran shares how they clean buses as respiratory illnesses increase

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - As Covid cases continue to rise and with flu season just around the corner, Sun Tran is sharing how it keeps buses clean.

They’ve got a fleet of 185 buses to take care of and clean all of them at night.

“It takes about 20 minutes per bus,” said Steve Spade, General Manager at Sun Tran. “What we’ll do is we’ll sweep and mop out the floors and wipe down the stanchions, and then we still use a fogger.”

That fogger has disinfectant sprayed at the end of each day. It was first used during Covid and has been applied consistently ever since.

“We’re efficient,” said Spade. “We get everything done every night and our people do a nice job.”

Keeping the bus clean while it’s being used is a little more challenging.

“We make wipes and masks and things available to our operators who have them. If we find something on there that is exceptional, we’ll actually have staff at the transit centers that will clean the buses. If it’s really bad and there’s something going on, we’ll pull the bus off the street and clean it.”

Keeping buses clean isn’t their only goal. Sun Tran is also responsible for bus stops and shelters.

“We have a crew of about ten people who are assigned daily that clean bus stops and bus shelters. They actually work in pairs and clean about 800 stops a month. The shelters that have high frequency and have a lot of people and are busy all the time, we’ll actually clean them on a daily basis.”

Sun Tran tells 13 News they haven’t gotten any requests for personal protective equipment (PPE), like masks or gloves, from riders, but they say they can use their own.

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