Graffiti in city centres and urban areas has risen dramatically over the years. It’s everywhere in 21st century Britain – on park benches, traffic lights and street signs, bus shelters and phone boxes, in car parks and train stations.

In the past 10 years graffiti has become more about leaving your mark and how long it stays around and less about art or political statement - so for those creating it, the more permanent it is, the better. Mitie has a specialist transport cleaning business that provides graffiti removal services for a number of high profile clients including Transport for London (TfL), Cityspace Kiosks, Tyne and Wear Metro and Merseytravel.

In this article Johan Venter of Mitie’s specialist transport team discusses the rise of graffiti in urban areas and Mitie’s approach to its removal.

Graffiti is not only unsightly, but can be dangerous - if sprayed onto traffic lights, the spray paint can interfere with the control units that manage the light sequence, putting pedestrians - particularly those with disabilities - in danger.
So clearly its quick and efficient removal is important, if not critical in some cases.

In response to the growing problem of graffiti, the government introduced the Clean Neighbourhoods Act in 2005 to give local authorities, parish and community councils and the Environment Agency the power to enforce fixed penalties to graffiti vandals and to recover the costs of its removal.

The effect on businesses

The removal of graffiti is a frustrating necessity for businesses. If the property is not cleaned in 28 days the authority can remove the graffiti themselves and charge the owner for this service. For smaller businesses this expenditure can harm profits and take up valuable resources.

The clean up cost for businesses can be enormous; we experienced 2338 incidents over a fourweek period with TfL - albeit mostly small scale ‘tagging’ against an organisation which runs 8000 buses, 600 tube trains and maintains nearly 300 tube stations as well as dozens of bus garages, stations and tube depots across the capital.

The removal of graffiti has to be continuous to deter the vandals from wasting their time and money on defacing an area they know will be short lived. And for our clients, the removal of graffiti is often vital to the integrity of their business.
Mitie’s approach is to split graffiti removal into two groups – Normal Operative Removal and Specialist Operative Removal.

Normal Operative Removal

Our staff clean thousands of items of street furniture a week and are expected to remove small areas of simple graffiti if it is found. This is carried out using a ‘coverall’ product and can be used freely on the marked area without fear of damage.
The chemical is applied by hand using a trigger bottle and agitated either with a brush or green pad.

The graffiti should loosen or dissolve and is then wiped off with a cloth and then naturalised by washing with water.
The chemical contact time can vary but would not be allowed to be left for more than five minutes - this is to ensure that our cleaning staff are working as efficiently as possible.

Specialist Operative Removal

The specialist operative carries a range of chemicals and is trained to a high standard in graffiti removal.
They try to ascertain what material has been used - it could be spray paint, road paint, a mixture of leather dyes, paint pigments, household paints, markers and even cocktails using superglue as an ingredient.

Once analysed the specialist operative can use a number of chemicals which are specific for the task. The methodology is similar to that of the normal cleaning operatives, however, specialist operatives are trained to know the reaction of the chemical depending on contact times, surface temperature, air temperature and the various asset materials before attempting to successfully remove the graffiti.

Contact times may vary from five minutes to 45 minutes and an operative might have to use several different products to avoid damaging the asset they are trying to clean.

Traffic light graffiti removal

We have been working with TfL for a number of years carrying out the cleaning and maintenance of bus shelters and stops and other related street furniture. Over a year ago we secured a specialist contract with TfL to clean up damaged and defaced traffic lights.

Traffic lights can be a target for criminal activity and we are employed as specialists to clean up traffic lights across London.
A mobile supervisor is deployed on a scooter to inspect traffic lights at various locations. The scooter is fitted with under-seat storage and a rear carrier equipped with emergency cleaning materials enabling the supervisor to address graffiti on the spot during the inspections.

Our supervisor collates both high level and low level priority tasks from the daily surveys and adds these tasks, inconjunction with those identified on the TfL database, to the operative’s daily route sheets.

There are three mobile cleaning operatives who perform the cleaning tasks, each having a Smart car.Our choice of car is aimed at minimising the impact of congestion and improving our ability to stop and clean the effected traffic light. The priority tasks compiled by the supervisor form part of our mobile operative’s daily responsibilities.Once these are complete, the mobile operatives continue with their programmed routes.

All of the traffic light locations are loaded into a system which automatically creates a designated route which is then loaded into a satellite navigation system. By designing these set routes, the system ensures that all the lights are identified and mapped out, providing the supervisor and operatives with a defined and efficient work plan.

There is great emphasis placed on the control and removal of graffiti by Transport for London, and rightly so. If graffiti is allowed to stay, others will feel free to add to it. What’s more, graffiti is a green issue and its removal costs the UK over £100 million per annum.

Removal specialists like Mitie have the ability to deal with graffiti quickly and effectively, helping in deterring those responsible and ensuring it does not become endemic throughout our towns and cities.