As we live today longer under the ground with increase of subways and underground markets, it is of much importance to take care of air quality in the underground environment not only in the ambient atmosphere. This paper reports the experiment on the suspended particulate matters concentrations in the subway air which was carried out from July through November except August in 1972 at the subway stations, Ginza's of Hibiya line and Marunouchi line and Hongo-Sanchome of Marunouchi line in Tokyo. In ambient air there was no significant difference between suspended particulate matters concentrations of Ginza and Hongo, whereas there is a significant difference in the subway, which is due to the difference between the numbers of passengers at both stations. Diurnal variation curve of suspended particulate matters concentration of week day (days except Saturday and Holiday) shows two peaks at 9.00 and 18.00, rush hour respectively in the morning and in the evening. On Saturday the morning peak is as high as on the week-day but there is not evening peak, and on Holiday there is no peak and concentrations are almost constant through a day. The ratio of particulates concentrations of ambient and subway air is as small as 0.50 during running hours (6.00-1.00 next morning), wheres it is about 0.80 during suspending hours (2.00-5.00). In comparison with the regulated standard in Japan, the percentage of subway data over it is 30 percent in suspending hours which is equal to that of ambient data, but it is no less than 70-90 percent in running hours. These show that subway air in running hours is more pollutioned than expected.
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