Mobile system installed on a fuel cell bus for long-term deployment
October 2014
The experimental phase of the project INTEGREEN is about to begin. A mobile unit for monitoring air pollution has been installed in one of the new fuel cell busses of SASA, the transport company responsible for the public transport in the cities of Bolzano, Merano and Laives. This will enable a detailed real time insight into the air quality conditions in the streets of the city. These trials have been organized in collaboration with STA (Strutture Trasporto Alto Adige SpA) and the European project CHIC (https://chic-project.eu/) and will continue until the end of the project. The aim is to discover the added value of such kind of information as compared to the quantity of data and elaborations on traffic and pollution which the project already manages and analyses. In particular, the project partners are curious to find out whether, from a qualitative point of view, it is possible to identify potential peak levels of pollution which present a clear correlation with certain traffic phenomena (tailback, transit of high number polluting vehicles, etc.). The pollutant primarily surveyed is nitrogen dioxide, but the mobile unit also allows to collect data on the concentration of ozone and carbon monoxide in the streets. Shortly, all local passengers will be able to use the test-versions of new and informative instruments, such as apps for smartphones, to be kept up to date in real time: they can check the availability forecast of parking spaces, the traffic density in the city and the real time position of the SASA busses. This gives them the possibility to optimize their own urban transportation, which – especially during particularly critical times, such as on rainy days – could help reduce traffic and bring passengers to their destination faster.
