Distribution of airborne bacteria in railway stations in Tokyo, Japan

We performed the current study to (1) understand the distribution of culturable airborne bacteria over a one-year monitoring period, (2) confirm places in stations where airborne bacteria are highly detected, (3) understand the factors that affect concentrations of airborne bacteria and (4) compare the distributions of airborne bacteria and fungi in railway stations in Japan.

Measurements of airborne bacteria were taken at stations A and B located in Tokyo. Station A had under- and above-ground concourses and platforms, whereas station B had spaces only above-ground. Airborne bacteria at each measurement position were collected with an air sampler on plate count agar media. After cultivation of the sampled media, the number of bacteria colonies was counted on each media.

(1) Airborne bacteria were highly detected in the above-ground concourse in station A. Almost all the indoor-to-outdoor (I/O) ratios of concentrations of airborne bacteria in the above-ground concourse in station A were higher than one throughout the year and were especially high in summer. (2) The factor that affects the concentrations of airborne bacteria seems to be the number of railway customers, not humidity. (3) The characteristics of the distributions of airborne bacteria and fungi were different, even though they were sampled in the same stations on the same days.

In the case of controlling indoor air quality of stations in the future, the locations in railway stations that would require control of indoor air quality differ between airborne bacteria or fungi, respectively.