Commuters on Vienna’s subway system are being handed free deodorants as a way to beat the heat while summer temperatures soar.
Although the European Union forbids transporting cattle when temperatures are above 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), humans are on their own.
As temperatures reach into the mid-90s (Fahrenheit) in Vienna, some subway riders are having to endure the ride with no air conditioning. While most U-Bahn trains have air conditioning, older cars on the U6 line do not.
Nonetheless, it appears that commuters on the city’s U6 line appreciated the smell-good gesture: The entire stock of 14,000 deodorants was grabbed in a single day, The Telegraph reported.
Wiener Linien public transport company spokesman Daniel Amman said the cans of deodorant were “torn out of our hands,” according to The Telegraph.
Amman was quick to add, however, that the deodorants weren’t distributed because Austrian commuters are more prone to suffer body odor than others.
“This was primarily intended as a consolation,” he said. “High temperatures can also make one more aware of odors.”
In 2016, London Underground passengers faced a similar problem, which the transit agency remedied by passing out free bottled water.
While temperatures were hot this week, they were by no means the highest recorded for commuters. Der Standard newspaper recorded a sweltering 42.6C (108.7F) on a city bus in 2010, The Telegraph reported.
Since then, all of Vienna’s buses have been equipped with air conditioning.
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