Now the borders have thankfully been reopened following the lifting of restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more tourists are no doubt expected to visit Hong Kong. This will be further encouraged by the announcement on 1 February 2023 by Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee to launch a HK$2 billion 'Hello Hong Kong' campaign, including up to 700,000 free flight tickets being given away starting on 1 March 2023 as well as new attractions and events planned for visitors to Hong Kong. Though great news for the Hong Kong economy, this influx of visitors will certainly put the city’s public services under more pressure, and that includes basic services such as public toilets. Toilet facilities at theme parks, shopping malls, transportation facilities and on the street will see increased foot traffic and keeping them in a hygienic condition is important not just for public health but for the image Hong Kong wishes to project to the world. This poses a challenge for the cleaning industry which is already facing a shortage of manpower. To solve this issue, leveraging advances in smart building solution technology and installing smart toilet systems in Hong Kong as other cities, such as Guangzhou, are now doing is a must. As such, in this blog, we will highlight the most common problems found in public toilets and how to improve public hygiene and safety using technology.
The traditional basic public toilet consists of the essential facilities with cleaning staff dealing with issues either on a schedule or ad hoc. This method of cleaning is either manpower intensive or leads to gaps when the toilets can become unsanitary or unsafe with wet floors or consumables such as toilet roll and soap becoming depleted. Thankfully, there are now several advances in smart toilet systems that can help mitigate these issues and introduce the concept of ‘clean on demand’. Let’s take a look at how some of those innovations can help.
These are often related to each other. An unsanitary toilet will produce foul odours. Smart toilet systems include placing smart toilet sensors in the ceiling that can detect in real-time the air quality and level of ammonia present, which in turn gives an indication of the cleanliness of the facility. These IoT sensors then feedback the information to supervisors to deploy cleaning staff to the facility. This means staff need only be sent as and when needed rather than on a fixed schedule, improving efficiency, lessening the need for so much manpower and thus reducing costs, while also providing an effective cleaning service.
Using a public toilet that doesn’t have the essential consumables on hand, such as toilet paper and soap, is not only unhygienic, but also frustrating. To help stop this issue from occurring, IoT sensors can be added to soap and toilet paper dispensers to provide real-time data on usage and any shortages that have occurred. Once again, supervisors can use this data to not only deploy staff to the facility to remedy the issue but also have a better understanding of consumable usage for better budget planning. Here is an example of how the dashboard of a smart toilet monitoring system developed by Hong Kong’s GF Technovation looks:
Smart toilet roll and soap dispensers can also help to reduce waste by only providing the amount needed.
Incidents such as falls which occur in non-peak times can be fatal. Only last year, there was an incident of a 66-year-old man found unconscious in a public toilet, who later sadly passed away in hospital. If smart toilet sensors were installed, however, an alert could have been sent to staff to alert them in case someone falls or becomes unconscious in a toilet facility for immediate action to be taken, possibly saving lives.
To help users avoid long queues during peak times, vacancy and toilet location information can be shown on panels to divert traffic to nearby toilets. Ultra-low power passive infrared (PIR) sensors can also provide management with an indication of how many users enter a particular restroom, allowing them to plan more effectively, especially when monitoring multiple locations.
Now Hong Kong will start to see an increased number of tourists visiting the following the relaxing of COVID-19 restrictions and thanks to the government’s new 'Hello Hong Kong' campaign, the pressure to keep our public toilets up to a world standard presents challenges for authorities. By using smart toilet systems and the method of ‘clean on demand’, Hong Kong city officials can enjoy cost savings and greater insights with less resources, while the public can enjoy cleaner, safer and more hygienic public toilets. To learn more about GF Technovation’s smart toilet system, click here.
