Filed under: Cars and Transportation, Gadgets and Tech, Local
In addition to the ridiculous number of real time traffic and weather monitoring apps you can get on your iPhone, you may soon be able to able to add street by street pollution updates. As part of the MESSAGE project (Mobile Environmental Sensing System Across Grid Environments) researchers at Imperial College London have set up a network of pollution sensors in the town of Gateshead to demonstrate the awesome power of live pollution mapping.
The project, which combines the efforts of Imperial College, Leeds, Newcastle, and Southampton Univeristies, is aimed at helping city planners and average joes monitor pollution hot spots. And thus, rethink the way they travel. According to Professor Bill Blythe of Newcastle: “The sensors we’ve deployed in Gateshead are small and low-cost. Other cities in the UK and around the world, such as New York and New Delhi, are interested in replicating what we’re doing here.” Sounds like I might have a new application to obsess over on Google Earth.
As a biker/pedestrian, would you alter your route if you noticed that you were going to walk through a steamy cloud of fumes?
[via Earth2Tech]
Pollution Mapping Goes Live in UK originally appeared on Green Daily on Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:30:00 EST 0. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
