Pollution Avoidance Support System (PASS) using GIS, Machine Learning and Big Data

Air-pollution kills millions every year. Like a 'pandemic in slow motion', dirty air is a plague on our health, causing 7-million deaths and many preventable illnesses like stroke, heart disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections worldwide each year (WHO, 2021). Yearly, in the UK, it causes 36,000 premature deaths (Government's Committee on Medical Effects of Air-Pollutants COMEAP) and costs £20-billion.

Although, pandemic-induced lockdowns caused largest drop in annual global emissions in 2020, lockdown easing has seen a surge to more than pre-pandemic levels. Despite various actions taken by many governments (e.g. enacting clean-air-zones), poor air quality is projected to continue into 2050 (OECD,2019).

Scientists recommend dodging approach to pollution-vulnerable people like those with respiratory illness (e.g. asthma, bronchitis, etc.) who develop complications and sometimes die due to exposure to high pollution levels (European Public Health Alliance, 2020). Pollution levels can vary widely between many locations within a city/town and will vary from time to time for a location. Current solutions provide city-wide information and are thus ineffective for dodging approach as a vulnerable person is unable to decipher which location(s) within a city/town to use or avoid if they were out on walk/journey/exercise etc. A solution with pollution-data on a much smaller scale, e.g. at postcode-units level, can solve this problem. However, the UK does not, and probably cannot, have monitoring equipment for each of its approximately 1.7 million postcode-units (a city/town can have 100s of postcode-units). Nonetheless, the thousands of emission-sensors operational across UK (BBC, 2019) provide enough data to develop models for all postcode-units if the right tools are deployed.

This project therefore aims to develop a system that can provide postcode-units-specific pollution data to users using machine learning algorithms, GIS data, telematics, weather data and big data analytics. The system will be available via web and mobile app and will include

**Live-Pass:** will provide live pollution data for each UK postcode-unit to support users in deciding for or against an outdoor activity (e.g. journey, outdoor exercise etc.) in a specific location/postcode-unit. It will suggest cleaner alternatives.

**Future-Pass:** will provide hourly 7-day future pollution forecast for each UK postcode-units to support planning/scheduling future outdoor events for a cleaner location/time.

**City/town analytics dashboard (CAD):** provide data and insights on the different levels of pollution for all the postcode-units within a city/town (targeted at local authorities)