=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2803/paper24
|storemode=property
|title=IoT on the roofs of municipally governed vehicles
for air pollution tracking (short paper)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2803/paper24.pdf
|volume=Vol-2803
|authors=Krassimira Ivanova,Todor Branzov,Natalia Ivanova
}}
==IoT on the roofs of municipally governed vehicles
for air pollution tracking (short paper)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2803/paper24.pdf
IoT on the roofs of municipally governed vehicles
for air pollution tracking
Krassimira Ivanovaa, Todor Branzova, Natalia Ivanovab
a
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
Acad. G. Bonchev Str., Block 8, Sofia, 1113, Bulgaria
b
Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University,
Moskovsky pr., 9, St. Petersburg, 190031, Russia
Abstract
One of the biggest challenges for the municipal government is dealing with air
pollution. According to data furnished by the World Health Organization 9 out
of 10 people worldwide breathe polluted air. Smart city infrastructures provide
many opportunities to find solutions to a number of tasks, including the task for
collecting information on pollution in different parts of the city. We propose an
idea to use municipally governed vehicles, such as police cars, busses, trains,
garbage collector machines, etc. as carriers of mobile sensors for collecting data
for air pollution. A conceptual model and plans for a series of experiments for
the feasibility of this idea are proposed.
Keywords
Smart City, Air Pollution, Data Collection
1. Problem and noise pollution in the UK. Surface transport
for example is responsible for around a quarter
Air pollution continues to be a major health of UK emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) – a
hazard to the public. The World Health major contributor to climate change, and traffic
Organisation [1] estimated that ambient air noise blights many neighbourhoods. Air quality
pollution caused 4.2 million deaths per year in the UK is slowly improving, but many areas
globally due to stroke, heart disease, lung still fail to meet national air quality objectives
cancer, acute and chronic respiratory diseases. and European limit values for some pollutants
According to data furnished by the World – particularly particles and nitrogen dioxide. In
Health Organization 9 out of 10 people town centres and alongside busy roads, motor
worldwide breathe polluted air. Major sources vehicles are responsible for most local pollution
of air pollution from particulate matter include and most environmental noise.”
the inefficient use of energy by households, Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria – usually
industry, agriculture, deforestation, waste it is one very beautiful town. With its rich
burning. But also, one of the main pollutants is history, big green parks, mountain
the transport sector. surroundings, and mostly nice weather, Sofia is
By the words of Environmental Protection a nice place not only for tourists, but also for
UK [2] “transport is the biggest source of air living. But sometimes Sofia is in the primary
Models and Methods for Researching Information Systems in Transport 2020, December 4–5, 2020, St. Petersburg, Russia
EMAIL: kivanova@math.bas.bg; todor.branzov@gmail.com; nataliv62@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0001-5056-7513; 0000-0001-8003-7273; 0000-0003-3463-2770
©️ 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
172
places in pollution city ranking, according to 2. Current state
IQAir [3]. One of the reasons, especially
frequent at the beginning of winter, is that Sofia In European Union (EU) series of directives
is located in a valley characterized by and guidelines originating from the Air Quality
temperature inversion. This specific natural Framework Directive (1996/62/EC) regulate
phenomenon, in combination with several air data gathering and validation regarding air
pollution sources, like combustion, quality. Some of the minimum requirements in
construction industry and transportation, make the legislation regarding reference and
Sofia not such a beautiful town in such days. equivalent non reference measurement methods
were not entirely feasible for scientific and
local government purposes. For example, the
EU Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC requires
that as a minimum one rural background station
is installed every 100 000 km2 for measuring
PM2.5 – this minimum was larger than the total
surface area of several Member States. Even
though that value was corrected to 25 000
sq.km in 2015 [4] that is still not feasible for
practical purposes of the municipal
governments. For the sheer purpose of decision
making, two types of air quality measurement
data are being gathered:
• ambient emissions – data generated by
monitoring of the air quality in a particular
area, for example – a city plaza or a park,
etc.
• on-road drive emissions, which determines
the on-road emissions of vehicles – data is
generated by sensors in close proximity to
the transportation infrastructure.
Along with municipal or state-owned air
quality measurement networks, recent
developments of sensor technologies and data
networking concepts such as the Internet of
Things (IoT) provided inexpensive means of
building private sensor networks for ambient
Fig. 1. Air pollution in Sofia in the period emissions. One of the pioneering projects –
21.11-20.12.2020 according to IQAir. World Air Quality Index project [5] began in
2007 and in 2020 aggregates data from more
Currently, around the end of November and than 30 000 sensing stations in 200 major cities.
beginning of December 2020 (Fig.1), with the The leading North American citizen science
peak of 28th November, the city of Sofia was at weather observation program – Citizen
the first place in air pollution with fine particles Weather Observer Program [6] provides data
2.5 microns and smaller (PM2.5) in the World. for air quality with its 7000 (in 2020) sensing
For these reasons, one of the biggest stations. One of the analogous initiatives in
challenges for the municipal government is European Union – Sensor.Community gathers
dealing with air pollution, and in particular – to data from 10 700 locations around the world
manage city transport in an efficient way. The [7].
key moment for assuring adequate reactions is
obtaining timely and accurate information
about traffic pollution in the city.
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The on-road drive emissions measurement effort or to be implemented by the municipal
networks are generally developed by transport authorities and all parties that have a sizable
administrations or municipal governments. We enough fleet.
have no information on citizen science projects We suggest the following key opportunities:
existing in that area. Two key aspects are
• Larger area of observation compared to the
observed in recent years – the first being
static sensors;
emergent term of Real-drive emissions (RDE),
especially after the 2015 scandal, which • Computation of characteristics of the air-
referred to the defeat devices installed on some quality that may be calculated more easily
car manufacturers diesel vehicles that aimed to if we have a moving sensor;
pass the certification tests in laboratory, but • Inexpensive complement to the static
emitted tens of times higher NOx emissions in sensor networks.
real-world driving. To study and evaluate that Two key premises are factors for feasibility,
phenomenon several methods aimed towards considering application of citizen science.
determination of various classes and even Although some restrictions are innate for the
particular vehicles emissions were developed. technology of the low-cost sensors designed for
One of the most recent involved using a mobile hobbyists and education, there is substantial
measurement platform, focused mostly on progress towards better quality in the last
chemical pollutants, that was mounted on a decade. Several researchers have noted and
vehicle that drove along Los Angeles road described the closing gap between the latter and
network [8]. The second key aspect is the sensors used in the reference methods,
integration with the Smart City paradigm – in especially in certain weather conditions (air
that case the sensor network provides data to humidity below 65%) [11], [12]; some sensors
various systems that automate key processes in even reached correlation 0.83-0.91 towards the
the city. One such example is the Hong Kong referent monitor. The other premise is
remote sensing network that measures tailpipe development and wide spreading of access to
emissions, speed, acceleration and the license infrastructure services that made development
plate number of a vehicle in half a second when of Internet of Things (IoT) systems possible
it passes by a measurement site; however, with a very tiny budget. In addition to the
complete automation of the measurement is infrastructure, communication controllers at a
straitened due to the need of recalibration of the price of up to 50 Euro are marketed by various
sensors in relatively short time intervals (every vendors.
two hours) [9]. A key general constraint of using vehicles as
Another trend that emerged in transportation mobile platforms is that they emit their own
is the implementation of sensors for in-cabin air emissions that would noise the data. We
quality monitoring. They appeared in heavy- suppose that the noise would greatly vary
duty industrial vehicles (mining, construction according to vehicle engine technology – the
and agricultural industries). In the last decade, chemical emissions that may be substantial in
however, many car manufacturers started internal combustion drives will be far less, or
implementing sensors that monitor air in the completely missing in electrical or hybrid drive
vehicle and control the ventilation system, and vehicles. The goal of this paper is to present a
even apply additional filtering accordingly concept for a series of experiments intended to
[10]. As a result, in any moment in any city study that noise.
there are a number of private mobile sensing
platforms. 4. Experimentation
3. Intentions and viability Since data error of the sensors vary
according to air humidity [13], we may assume
Our general intention is to study the possible that the noise will also vary and boundary
application of inexpensive vehicle mounted conditions may be found at about 65% relative
sensors for the purpose of on-road drive humidity. To check that assumption, a number
emissions data gathering. The motivation for of iterations of the experiment have to be
the research is to develop and propose methods conducted with different air humidity
and tools that may both extend citizen science conditions.
174
We propose the following values: • Task 3: To study the measurements data
• 1-st iteration at values of 15-20% relative obtained by a mobile sensor platform in a
humidity of air; simulation of road environment with
• 2-nd iteration at 50% relative humidity; electric vehicles only. A pack of three
• 3-rd iteration at 60-65% relative humidity. electric cars is formed, where the mobile
sensor platform is in the middle, making
It is practical to find a day of the year in one lap of the track (task one).
which all those conditions will be available (in
• Task 4: To study the measurements
temperate climate in the northern hemisphere
obtained by a mobile sensor platform in a
there are several such days during the late
noisy mixed environment – electric cars
spring and early summer), so that all the
and cars with internal combustion
experiments will be conducted during only one
engines. A pack of five cars – an electric
day.
car and an internal combustion engine car
We set out several requisites for the site of in front of the mobile sensor platform and
experimentations: an electric car and an internal combustion
• 2 km long straight road (track). engine car behind the mobile sensor
• Eight stationary sensor stations, mounted platform, making one lap of the track.
at a height 150 centimetres from the
ground, at a distance of 250 meters from 5. Conclusion and discussion
each other along the runway. The purpose
of those is to measure values that will be The actual experiments are planned for the
used as referent without the noise of the next year (2021). We have chosen a 2,5 km long
vehicles (static sensor stations). Each will former airstrip, located in an area of low
contain a relative humidity sensor, and housing and agricultural land, at about 5 km
pollutant sensors. away from a big city boundary. The valley in
• Three electric cars, one of which is a which the runway is located is oriented east-
platform for a measuring station (mobile west, with a strong west wind profile. We have
sensor platform) containing a relative an agreement with a company that offers shared
humidity sensor, and pollutant sensors – use of electric vehicles to provide us with the
same as those in the static sensor stations. needed vehicles for the experiments. The
• Three cars with internal combustion company may eventually join as a carrier of
engines, one of which is a mobile sensor sensors if an operational system is developed.
station.
The set of experiments will give a clearer
We have designed the following series of view of the feasibility of the idea of using low-
experimentation tasks, each of which will be cost air pollutants sensors deployed on vehicles
conducted in every iteration: with electrical drive and internal combustion
• Task 1: To study the noise of own drive. It will assess the noise influence over
emissions of the test car. The test vehicle data obtained by such sensor platforms.
travels the track straight and back (one In case of a feasible idea, potential key users
lap). The mobile sensor platform of the data are municipal and state authorities,
measurements are analysed and compared researchers and developers of data analysis and
with static sensor stations. That task shall visualisation tools. A key constraint for usage
be performed for electrical and internal in EU countries is meeting the guidelines for
combustion vehicles. equivalent measurement methods [14].
• Task 2: To investigate the influence on For the realization of the idea, the 5 layered
data of vehicle starting and stopping. The IoT architecture will be used, including:
readings in the first five increments of ten Perception Layer (where sensors and actuators
seconds after departure are compared are used to gather useful information), Network
against those by a static car. The readings Layer (responsible for communication between
immediately at braking shall be examined perception and middleware layer in a secure
against the readings ten seconds after manner), Middleware Layer (responsible for
stopping and against the readings in such features like storage, computation,
motion. processing, action taking capabilities),
175
Application Layer (which manages all Acknowledgements
application processes based on information
obtained from middleware layer), and Business This work is partially supported by Contract
Layer (including all tasks, connected with the DО1-161/28.08.2018 "NGIC – National
delivering of obtained results to the consumers Geoinformation Center for monitoring,
in appropriate manner) [15]. assessment and prediction of natural and
anthropogenic risks and disasters" under the
The application of citizen science would Program "National Roadmap for Research
open opportunities for inclusion of private Infrastructure 2017-2023", funded by the
enterprises such as public transportation Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science.
companies, short rent-a-car and companies with
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