First there was Air-Wick and Glade. Then there was Smell-O-Vision. And then someone at Wiener Linien, Vienna’s transport agency, came up with the idea of adding pleasant scents to the city’s subway cars.
And the public wasn’t charmed. Of 37.000 people surveyed on which scent they preferred, 21,000 chose ‘none.’
The test, which was run in July, pumped a variety of scents and mixtures of scents into the ventilation systems of the cars. Among those who voted for an aroma, the most popular was an ‘energize’ mix of grapefruit, green tea, lemon and sandalwood.
While that turned out to be a dud idea, Wiener Linien has had some good ones. In 2012, it introduced a pass that allows unlimited use of subway, bus and tram in the city for €1 a day on an annual pass; nearly half the city’s residents now have the pass, and the number of passes has outstripped the number of cars registered in the city.
