Technology to keep Tyneside's air clean

Aug 3 2010 by Amy Hunt, The Journal

TECHNOLOGY has been developed to help experts discover more about keeping the air around Tyneside clean.

Newcastle University professors are using a powerful new software system, called Airviro, to track poisonous fumes from cars on a street by street basis.

Teams from the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences have already produced a system of using sensors to measure levels of harmful gases and particles from exhaust emissions which are found on city streets.

Using the new technology they hope to combine data – like the volume and speed of traffic – with weather information and the height of buildings to give an accurate and detailed picture of how vehicle fumes gather in specific locations.

This will allow traffic engineers and planners to see what effect limiting vehicle numbers, changing speed limits and even changing the height and arrangement of buildings could have on air quality.

Margaret Bell, Newcastle University Science City professor of transport and the environment, said: “The Airviro model is a crucial tool to help us to understand where the emissions from traffic are ending up in the urban environment in specific streets. If you have a street that’s narrow with tall buildings, depending on the wind, that pollution will become trapped in that street. But when it’s windy it will blow the pollution away so will not necessarily be a problem.

“The Airviro model is a way to help us predict where the pollution will build up so we can advise how to prevent it.

“For example in a street with high congestion, in certain metrological conditions it would be sensible to hold traffic away from the area and move it to a place where there’s open space so the pollution will be less harmful. If the public understands the effect of congestion and particularly the role traffic has on producing emissions, hopefully we will get the message across that high levels of traffic cause higher levels of air pollution.

“This might persuade them to take action to reduce traffic on the roads, by avoiding making trips that are not necessary, ride sharing and making positive steps to cut down on the number of trips made by car.” Dr Anil Namdeo, senior lecturer in Transport and Sustainability at Newcastle University added: “Local air quality has a massive impact on quality of life – and can even prematurely shorten it.

“What we need to do is make individual lifestyle changes to alleviate this problem, which will grow because of increasing numbers of trips and vehicles on our roads.”

The software has already been tried and tested in some of the world’s biggest cities, including Singapore and Stockholm. Closer to home, it has been adopted by Sheffield, Leeds and Leicester.

The new system has been welcomed by the collective local authority initiative designed to raise awareness about air quality issues across Tyne and Wear, Be Air Aware. Ed Foster, Be Air Aware manager, said: “We’re thrilled Tyne and Wear has joined a select band of cities to use Airviro – it’s a real boost to our armoury for improving air quality in the future.

“But while the data will be incredibly useful, the best way to improve air quality is to swap the car for more sustainable forms of transport – and that requires action from everyone across the region.”