Drayson Technologies is partnering with Inmarsat and courier company Gophr in an effort to build the world’s most accurate map of air pollution.
Fifty of Gophr’s bike couriers in London will be equipped with Drayson’s CleanSpace Tags, which measure carbon monoxide levels in real time. The tags are powered by the company’s Freevolt technology that harvests residual radio frequency energy from the air, including from 4G and WiFi signals. Data from the couriers will be combined with that of other tag users and fed into the CleanSpace app’s Air Map.
“The CleanSpace network aims to provide the world’s most advanced air pollution map using thousands of personal sensors powered by Freevolt,” said Lord Drayson, founder and CEO of the company.
“This partnership brings together the combined expertise and commitment of Drayson Technologies, Gophr and Inmarsat so that people in London can see the air they breathe and help to create, not just a smart city – but a smarter society.”
The couriers will also be equipped with Inmarsat’s LoRa (Long range) trackers to provide accurate location data via satellite. Compared to mobile-based location services, fewer access points are needed to establish the position of the riders in the city, and the couriers won’t have to worry about battery drain on their mobile devices. According to Inmarsat, this is the first time its LoRa trackers will have been used for a public network in London.
“Air pollution is a global problem, contributing to about 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK alone,” said Greg Ewert, president for Enterprise Markets at Inmarsat.
“Creating an accurate air pollution map at breathing height will contribute to the better understanding of how to combat this issue and improve air quality in London.”
Drayson said there are plans for its CleanSpace Tags to be distributed amongst other organisations in the near future, creating even more accurate air quality maps. In the meantime, the Gophr couriers are predicted to travel around 17,000 miles each month, accumulating indoor and outdoor air quality data on a scale that hasn’t been seen before in London.
“We’re a company that’s proud to be using the most innovative technology solutions available to make the world a better place to live in,” said Seb Robert, Gophr’s founder. “As a courier service built by, and with bicycle couriers from day one, we’re proud to be able to use our resources to map air pollution in the capital.”
Fellow bloggers might recall a previous post: after chancing upon the Supreme Court (as one does!) I listened to the presentation of a case against HMG : brought by Friends of the Earth of some such: this was for NOT having a timed-plan to take steps to conform to the more stringent regulations brought in some years ago by YKW [Those lay-abouts in Brussels, Strasburg and points in-between] I was impressed that their Lordships each had lap-tops, each had clearly done their home-work, and asked sensible and searching questions. It appeared to me that they knew more about the matter(s) at issue than the barrister representing HMG. Their ruling was clear. The Government has an absolute duty to conform and comply with the Law! -even if it comes from Brussels. Presumably this no longer applies (well at least no longer than however long it takes to dis-entangle us from the present mess! How many UK citizens will, in the interim, suffer disease and premature death is anyone’s guess.
Where does he get this number from?
Hi John
I’m not sure what you mean. To obtain an idea of numbers for contributing causes of death, you would assemble all the facts and figures and then use addition and subtraction to come up with a figure that represents the size of the problem.
But 40,000 or 1, if that 1 is you or someone you care about, would you not be interested in reducing air pollution?
Reply to John,
The numbers are bandied about in a number of WHO reports that can be traced back on this blog in fact. The worrying thing is that the claims about health risk are being treated as fact when they are opinions based on a few published studies. They use a statistical trick called “Meta-analysis” to justify any chance correlation: with meta-analysis the third paper re-uses the information from the first and second publication as double the amount of data even though both used the same data – be very wary of these pseudo-medical statisticians.
Reply to John and Jack, hope to be of help. I recently came across the 40,000 figure too but from a different source. In case you are not familiar with it and is of interest:
The 40,000 a year figure is reported in the ‘Every breath we take: the lifelong impact of air pollution’ report from the RCP and the RCPCH which examines the impact of exposure to air pollution across the course of a lifetime. The report indicates “Each year, inhaling particulates causes around 29,000 deaths in the UK, which, on recent evidence, may rise to around 40,000 deaths when also considering nitrogen dioxide exposure.”
The 29,000 figure is from COMEAP2 which provides a detailed account of the quantification of the mortality burden of exposure to PM2.5 in the UK (see p81 of the report)
p82 they qualify use of the 40,000 figure:
When quantifying the total impact associated with exposure to both NO2 and PM2.5, it is therefore necessary to account for this overlap in the response functions. Defra estimates that the annual equivalent number of attributable deaths associated with the two pollutants combined is 44,750–52,500, with an associated annual social cost of £25.3 billion – £29.7 billion. However, a subsequent paper issued by COMEAP in December 2015 indicates that the level of overlap in estimates between pollutants may be greater than originally thought.
On this basis, while recognising that COMEAP’s research on this issue is continuing, this report adopts a combined estimate of effect of around 40,000 deaths annually with an associated annual social cost of £22.6 billion (both with a range for a central estimate of ±25%).
https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/every-breath-we-take-lifelong-impact-air-pollution
Is there some irony that all of the pictured cycle couriers are not wearing helmets? I wonder what the statistics for deaths in London for cyclists is?
To be fair, it looks like the cyclists are posing for a press shot, rather than being photographed out and about on the job.