Air Quality Monitoring in Stockport, UK
In today’s modern world, traffic pollution is worsening worldwide and the major threat to clean air is now posed by traffic emissions. With this in mind, Stockport Borough Council, in conjunction with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), were chosen to trial an innovative method for monitoring Real Time Traffic Emissions along the A6 corridor.
TDC was able to provide the E-MOTE system as an innovative solution for the trial. This system consists of a network of pervasive sensors capable of measuring air quality and relaying data via wireless communications to a central server using TDC’s HI-TRAC® iGate Intelligent Gateway Device. The iGATE is also used to communicate data from other relevant sensing technologies such as wind speed, wind direction, vehicle data, Weigh-In- Motion data and BluetoothTM data used for journey time analysis.
The aim of the trial is to prove that the levels of emissions detected provide reliable, indicative, real time readings to compare with data from more cumbersome and expensive automatic urban and rural network systems.
E-MOTES are easy to set up by fixing to suitable street furniture, such as a lamp post, and spaced approximately 100 meters apart. Each network communicates through an iGate and can accommodate up to 100 devices. Updates are provided to the system every minute and the user is able to constantly monitor the emissions created by the traffic.
The E-MOTES can monitor up to three different gases along with air temperature, humidity and noise. The gases chosen by Stockport to monitor are CO, NO and NO2. The beauty of the system is that it is low cost, compact, real time and completely wireless. It has now been deployed and is part of an on-going review by DEFRA to assess the potential of the devices.
The beauty of the system is that it is low cost, compact, real time and completely wireless. It has now been deployed and is part of an on-going review by DEFRA to assess the potential of the devices.
Key Features
Air Quality Monitoring
TDC Systems’ Air Quality Monitoring System automatically measures real-time airborne PM1.0, PM2.5, PM10 or Total Suspended Particles (TSP) Particulate Concentration at any roadside location.
GPRS Enabled
This means all recorded data is sent via GPRS to Drakewell’s C2 web based platform. Drakewell’s C2-Web is fast becoming the industry’s ‘go-to’ software solution, delivering fast and accurate traffic data that is easily sharable via a web browser. Users are no longer tied to manufacturer specific software and only need C2-Web and a browser to access their data which is securely stored and backed up on Drakewell cloud-based servers available 24/7.
Why Bluetooth?
TDC’s HI-TRAC® BLUE works seamlessly with the iGate. This provides a solution which is cost-effective and an efficient alternative to Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). TDC Systems Bluetooth™ journey time monitoring system is the most advanced on the market, directly and accurately measuring vehicle & pedestrian journey times using low-cost, non-intrusive technology.