Guides for cleaning crews

Car interior cleaning checklist for an AV fleet: the turnaround clean between riders, in order

Open the doors, clear and log, vacuum, wipe the points every rider touches, do the belts, screens and glass, refit the mats, sign. Which products the owner's manual allows, when to disinfect, and when the car is a hold.

By XoomPark Editorial Team · November 13, 2026

Work the same order on every car: open the doors, clear and log what riders left, pull the mats and vacuum, wipe the points every rider touches, do the seats and belts, then screens and glass, refit the mats, check and sign. For a routine turn, clean; do not disinfect. CDC says cleaning alone removes most types of harmful germs from surfaces, and to disinfect surfaces where people have obviously been ill.¹ What may touch each surface is set by the car's owner's manual. The one we use as the example here, General Motors' manual for an electric hatchback, says to use cleaners designed for the surface, apply them to the cloth and never spray them on switches or controls.⁶

The turnaround clean in order. The product rules are from one owner's manual; check the manual for your own cars.
Step	What to do	The rule to remember	Basis
1. Open up	All doors open before any product comes out	Open the doors and windows for ventilation while cleaning the interior⁶	Owner's manual;⁶ OSHA and NIOSH³
2. Clear and log	Trash out; bag and log anything a rider left	Broken glass that may be contaminated is never picked up by hand: brush and dust pan, tongs or forceps⁵	OSHA 29 CFR 1910.1030⁵
3. Mats out, vacuum	Shake mats outside the car; vacuum seats, then floor	Soft brush attachment; a rotating brush only on the floor carpet⁶	Owner's manual⁶
4. High-touch wipe	Door handles inside and out, belt buckles, window switches, armrests, grab handles	Clean high-touch surfaces regularly, others when visibly dirty;¹ cleaner on the cloth, not on the switch⁶	CDC;¹ owner's manual⁶
5. Seats and belts	Blot spills, wipe with a damp cloth, pull each belt out and look at it	Do not soak upholstery; never bleach belt webbing, mild soap and lukewarm water only⁶	Owner's manual⁶
6. Screens and glass	Brush dust off, then a microfiber cloth	Never window cleaner or solvents on a display; glass gets water first⁶	Owner's manual⁶
7. Mats back	One mat per position, right side up, on its retainers	Nothing on top of the mat on the pedal side; check it does not touch the pedals⁶	Owner's manual⁶
8. Check and sign	Smell, damp spots, belts retract, nothing left behind	A car that fails goes on hold, not back in line	Our step

Does every shared car need disinfecting between riders?

No. CDC's guidance for facilities says that in most situations cleaning regularly is enough to prevent the spread of germs, and that disinfecting is for surfaces where people have obviously been ill.¹ OSHA and NIOSH add the worker's side: choose the least hazardous cleaning chemical that will accomplish the task, because disinfectants and sanitizers are in general more hazardous than cleaners.³

When a rider has been sick in the car, disinfect, and do it the way the EPA lays out in six steps: check the product has an EPA registration number, read the directions for its use sites and surface types, pre-clean a surface that is visibly dirty, keep the surface wet for the whole contact time, wear gloves and wash your hands after, and keep the lid closed.² The contact time is the step crews skip. A wipe that dries in thirty seconds on a product with a longer contact time has cleaned the handle, not disinfected it.

Check "surface types" on the disinfectant label against the owner's manual before the product goes near a screen, a belt or soft trim.²⁶
Do not fog or spray the cabin. CDC does not recommend fogging, fumigation or wide-area or electrostatic spraying as a primary method unless the product label says it can be used that way.¹
CDC writes this guidance for ordinary facilities and says it does not apply to healthcare settings.¹ Treating a shared car as an ordinary facility is our assumption.

Which cleaners damage a car interior?

More than most crews expect. The General Motors manual bans solvents and cleaners containing solvents, laundry detergents and dish soaps with degreasers, and strong or caustic soap, and it sets the strength of a soap solution at about 20 drops per gallon (3.8 L) of water, because a concentrated solution leaves streaks and attracts dirt.⁶

What one owner's manual forbids, surface by surface. Your cars' manual governs; use this as the list of questions to ask it.
Surface	Do not use	Why the manual says so
Displays and high gloss trim	Window cleaner or solvents⁶	Use a soft brush, then a microfiber cloth⁶
Seat belt webbing	Bleach or dye⁶	It may severely weaken the webbing, which then might not protect in a crash⁶
Dash, leather, vinyl, plastic	Heat, steam, spot removers, silicone or wax products, anything that adds gloss⁶	Reflected glare can cut visibility through the windshield⁶
Rubber floor mats	Silicone, wax or gloss cleaners⁶	They can make the mat slippery⁶
Any surface	Razors, stiff brushes, hard rubbing⁶	Permanent damage⁶
Plastic and painted trim	Air freshener left in contact⁶	May cause permanent damage; blot and clean with mild soap solution⁶

Two things riders leave behind are worth a line on the checklist: the manual says to remove hand lotion, sunscreen and insect repellent from interior surfaces immediately with a mild soap solution, or permanent damage may result.⁶ A shared car sees more of all three than a private one does.

What does a cleaner do with blood, a needle or broken glass?

Stop, close the car and put it on hold. That car is no longer a turnaround clean. OSHA's bloodborne pathogens standard covers blood and other potentially infectious materials, which include any body fluid visibly contaminated with blood and all body fluids where it is difficult or impossible to tell them apart.⁵

An employer whose employees have occupational exposure must have a written Exposure Control Plan. Occupational exposure means contact with blood or those materials that is reasonably anticipated from the employee's duties.⁵ Whether a depot cleaning crew meets that test is the employer's call to make, in writing, before the first such car turns up.
Needles and broken glass count as contaminated sharps. They go in a container that is closable, puncture resistant, leakproof on the sides and bottom, and labeled or color-coded.⁵ Nobody reaches under a seat blind.
Surfaces are decontaminated with an appropriate disinfectant immediately or as soon as feasible after a spill of blood or those materials.⁵ That is a job for the person the plan names, with the kit the plan lists.
Vomit with no blood in it is the CDC case above: a surface where someone has obviously been ill, so clean first, then disinfect for the full contact time.¹²

What must a cleaning crew know about its own chemicals?

What is in every bottle, where the safety data sheet is, and what must never be mixed. OSHA's hazard communication standard requires safety data sheets to be readily accessible to employees during each work shift, every container of hazardous chemicals in the workplace to be labeled, tagged or marked, and training at first assignment and whenever a new chemical hazard is introduced.⁴

The spray bottle on the cart is a container. If it was filled from a drum, it carries a label too.⁴
Never mix cleaning chemicals. OSHA and NIOSH warn that products containing bleach and ammonia, mixed, can cause severe lung damage or death.³
Know which products are diluted and how.³ For the soap solution above, that is the manual's 20 drops per gallon.⁶
Training has to be in a language and vocabulary the crew understands.³
Wash hands with soap and water for 20 seconds after cleaning.¹

How many cars can a cleaning crew turn in a shift?

At eight minutes a car, forty cars is 320 cleaner-minutes: 5 hours 20 minutes for one cleaner, or 2 hours 40 minutes each for two.

The eight minutes is our assumption, not a measured figure. Time ten cars with the table above and use your own number. Two things break the arithmetic. A car on hold for blood or sharps is not in the count at all. And a car that needs a seat shampooed is a deep clean, which belongs on a different schedule; putting it in the turnaround line makes every car behind it late.

The clean fits best while the car is on its stall, since doors-open time costs nothing there. When stalls are short and the clean waits on charging, XoomPark arranges AV fleet charging at existing stations in the hours their stalls sit unused, never blocks a station's regular customers and never pushes the station past its monthly peak.

When this checklist is the wrong tool

The car needs a deep clean: stained seats, shampooed carpet, odor that survives open doors. That is the detailing vendor's job; see the detailing guide.
There is blood, a needle or broken glass. Hold the car and follow the Exposure Control Plan.⁵
The dirt is on the cameras or sensors of the driving system. Those are cleaned the way the vehicle's maker says, by the people it trains, and are outside this list.
The car carries patients. CDC's cleaning guidance does not apply to healthcare settings,¹ so medical transport needs its own procedure.

Questions cleaning crews ask

What do I need to clean the inside of a car?

Going by one owner's manual: a vacuum with a soft brush attachment, microfiber cloths, a soft bristle brush for displays and crevices, water, and mild soap at about 20 drops per gallon.⁶ Add gloves and whatever the safety data sheet for your products calls for.⁴

Can I use dish soap on a car interior?

Not one with a degreaser. The General Motors manual says not to use laundry detergents or dishwashing soaps with degreasers, and no strong or caustic soap; it calls for a mild soap solution.⁶ Check your own cars' manual.

Can I use a disinfecting wipe on the touchscreen?

Only if both the wipe's label and the car's manual allow it. The EPA says to read a disinfectant's directions for surface types,² and the manual we cite says never to use window cleaners or solvents on displays.⁶ When they disagree, the manual wins and the screen gets a microfiber cloth.

How often should door handles and buckles be cleaned?

CDC says to clean high-touch surfaces regularly and other surfaces when visibly dirty.¹ In a shared car we read "regularly" as every turnaround; that cadence is our assumption.

Why do the floor mats matter?

Because a mat put back wrong can interfere with the pedals in any car that has them. The manual warns of unintended acceleration or longer stopping distance, and says to use one mat, right side up, on its retainers, with nothing on top.⁶

Sources

Sources are public. XoomPark isn't affiliated with the companies referenced in this post.

Authorship

Written by XoomPark Editorial Team in collaboration with Claude Fable 5.2

Role breakdown: Topic selection and publishing by XoomPark Editorial Team; research, source checks against primary sources and draft prose by Claude Fable 5.2.