Thanks to a partnership with London-based Internet of Things (IoT) platform company Drayson Technologies, users of the world’s most widely-used transport app, Moovit, can now check the levels of air pollution on their route in the UK.
The news comes in a week that has seen the UK issued with an official warning by the European Union (EU) regarding rising pollution levels that saw nitrogen dioxide limits repeatedly exceeded in 16 areas, including the cities of London, Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow.
An additional survey undertaken by the University of Surrey has demonstrated that public transport users are exposed to a much higher level of pollution than car drivers. As an example, metro users are exposed to eight times more pollution levels than those driving to work.
Moovit’s Air Pollution mapping feature now becomes an essential tool for health-conscious travelers keen to know when levels are reaching dangerous proportions on their commute.
Israeli software company Moovit’s app has 52 million users, in over 1,200 cities, across more than 70 countries worldwide, and can be used in 43 languages. The Moovit community sends active reports about their travel experience, such as bus congestion levels or cleanliness, to help others. The company generates as many as 200 million data points a day that comprise the world’s largest repository of transport data.
Drayson uses Sensyne machine-learning software and Freevolt-enabled personal smart sensors to create hyper-local air pollution information that enables people to ‘see the air they breathe’, and to help enterprises and municipalities implement projects that improve air quality. Drayson operates CleanSpace, an IoT sensor network to monitor air pollution, and Aura, an end-to-end IoT network to measure and monitor environmental conditions.
In addition to accessing air pollution information for their chosen public transport route, Moovit users can also request to be equipped with Drayson’s CleanSpace Tags, personal air pollution smart sensors, in order to collect hyper-local air pollution data as they travel in and around their cities. The Moovit community members equipped with CleanSpace Tags will crowdsource air pollution data wherever they are, helping to build a global map of air pollution.
“It is essential that commuters have easy access to information that plays a direct part in their overall health and wellbeing. CleanSpace is an incredibly smart network that allows Moovit users to be pollution aware by tracking the pollution levels along their journey anywhere in the UK,” explained Yovav Meydad, Moovit’s vice president of product.
“The community is also able to contribute to this huge network, mapping air pollution levels across the country, and by carrying a CleanSpace smart sensor they are effectively providing a constant data source to help us track where pollutions levels are high.”
Lord Paul Drayson, chairman and CEO of Drayson, said, “With this partnership, we’re combining two areas of innovative technology, crowd-sourced journey planning data and an IoT sensor network, to build information for the benefit of the wider public. Air pollution is a global issue, but through the provision of accurate data, we can help improve air quality across the globe.”
