Innovate UK InterCityAir

The InterCityAir project will develop a wireless sensor for the measurement of air pollution. The sensor will be integrated into urban traffic management systems in the City of Chester to reduce levels of toxic gases to which the public are being exposed.

InterCityAir will directly address the following key challenges of this call, namely: The use of environmental and social data to address urban challenges, the creation of a new value proposition through integration of datasets, and an improvement in the monitoring of the urban environment through the development and deployment of an intelligent sensor system.

InterCityAir will develop an air quality (AQ) sensing platform that can be integrated with the transport management systems of Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC). C-Tech will develop a wireless sensing unit comprising commercial sensors that could be deployed as a stand-alone system or city-wide network at low cost for remote real-time monitoring of air quality. The sensing units will be wireless enabled and suitable for road-side AQ monitoring with a view to be adapted for on-board vehicle monitoring of AQ.

This project will establish the feasibility of linking the C-Tech sensing unit with existing traffic count data and the traffic signalling system to alleviate traffic build-up and associated pollution hotspots.

The University of Chester (UOC) will deploy air quality instrumentation alongside the CWAC real-time nitrogen oxides (NOx) monitoring site in the Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) on the Boughton gyratory to gather comprehensive baseline data to understand fully the performance of the sensor package in the complex urban atmosphere. This site in the AQMA will be used as a demonstration site for the sensing platform developed by C-Tech.

Current legislation requires the monitoring of air quality and the requirement for the pollutants to be below certain mandated levels, e.g. NO2. The failure to reach EU air quality objectives has potentially exposed the UK to £300 million in fines. The continued struggle to meet regulatory requirements requires alternative approaches to the methods currently employed. The development of small, low-cost air quality sensors by C-Tech in collaboration with CWAC unitary authority and the University of Chester will lead to significant impact with respect to the meeting of legislative requirements in addition to a number of other areas. The impact can be divided in a number of sectors, namely economic, innovation, public health and environment, education, outreach and public engagement.
Current urban air pollution monitoring for NO2 uses chemiluminescence technology and the current price of an analyser is approximately £10 000, restricting the coverage of monitoring within the complex urban air shed where high spatial and temporal resolution is required to understand the drivers of the air composition. The C-Tech air monitoring package will cost approximately 20% of the current system and thus allow an increase in spatial coverage. The system will also add value by allowing the measurement of SO2 and ozone to the measurement of NO2.
Firstly the work of the University of Chester will benefit C-Tech by providing expert advice, data and interpretation for the development of their air pollution sensing platform and access to University prototyping facilities. The project will also benefit the local council by adding value during the period of the project to their air quality measurement programme by providing additional measurements including ozone and particulates.
The development of an intelligent network of small sensors linked into the traffic management system will, in terms of cost and information availability, benefit residents, businesses and visitors to the city of Chester. The health effects and consequent costs are detailed in the main proposal document. Air pollution can have a significant effect on the fabric buildings in terms both of visual impact and also erosion of stonework and the protection of cultural heritage is an important aspect of the project.
This project will encourage closer ties between an experienced innovation company (C-Tech), a new and growing science faculty at the University of Chester and the Air Quality group in CWAC. The combination of policy-implementation, research, and product development will ensure the project remains directly relevant to the well-being of the people of Chester, the realities of the market and at the cutting edge of technology.
The project has intrinsic benefits to public health and environment. The development of a low-cost AQ management system linked directly to traffic management will increase the "reach" of the local authority and other enforcement bodies. Areas of concern can be identified easily by spreading a "web" of sensors across the city. This will only be possible through the low-cost of each system.
The project will impact the public understanding of the effects of air pollution and the quality of air within the city. The University of Chester will exploit the measured datasets in their teaching activities. The data can be used to teach in the environmental sciences and the data sciences more broadly. The data will provide a "real-world" aspect to the education of computer scientists, statistics students and natural sciences students. The project will therefore contribute the building of applied industry-relevant skills sets.
The feasibility study will also look at the possibility of scaling-up the effort to include the whole city of Chester and even surrounding urban centres and areas affected by industrial emissions within the region. The provision of a publically available dataset along with visualisation could feed into planning this development.