South Western Railway trials air-purifying technology at Salisbury station

South Western Railway have begun trialling a Pluvo air-purifying totem at one of the busiest stations in the South West.

The Pluvo Column, situated on platform four at Salisbury station, will monitor and remove pollutants from the air using air filtration technology to create a cleaner and healthier environment for customers.

The Column can be installed in any space with access to mains power. It ‘breathes’ in surrounding air and purifies it through a three stage scrubbing process that eliminates airborne PM, targeted gases such as NOx and viruses with up to 99.5% efficiency.

The Column not only produces over 2,000 breaths of clean air per second, it also monitors and tracks the local air quality. 

South Western Railway customers can get more information about the Pluvo Column and give SWR their thoughts on the initiative via an interactive two-way engagement platform from Hello Lamp Post. This enables passengers to engage with SWR’s ‘friendly bird mascot’, Wesley C Peck.

If the trial is successful, SWR say they could install Pluvo Columns at more of its stations as part of its drive to improve the journey experience for all its customers.

The partnership with Pluvo is just one of the ways in which SWR is trying to improve their customers’ journey experience.  They have installed more than 4,000 cycle spaces across its vast network in the last five years and are encouraging sustainable tourism by enabling customers to travel by rail to a destination and then continue their journeys through bike and scooter hire.

It is also part of SWR’s drive to be a more sustainable train operator. SWR was the first TOC to publish a roadmap to Net Zero and to have its carbon emission reduction targets recognised by the Science Based Targets initiative, a leading global climate body.

Jessica Van Staden, South Western Railway’s Senior Sustainability Manager said: ‘This partnership with Pluvo is very important to us as we investigate and trial new ways of improving our customers’ journeys. The results of the Pluvo Column trial at Salisbury could have far reaching effects on how we improve air quality in our stations as well as in other public spaces.

‘We would like to encourage customers at the station to use the Column’s chat feature to give us their opinion on the trial and whether they would like to see it extended to other SWR stations.’

Matteo Maccario, CEO of Pluvo, added: ‘We’re delighted to be working with SWR to improve the air quality at one of the South West’s busiest stations. Air Pollution is the single biggest environmental threat to global health and the Pluvo Column is a solution which can help create healthier and safer spaces for us all.’