Real-time Emission Visualisation (REVIS) for Eco-friendly Travel Behaviours

Project summary

Real-time Emission Visualisation for eco-friendly travel behaviours (REVIS) aims to provide a step-change in decision-making and behavioural change for emissions reduction, and will enable local authorities to devise and test emission reduction policies tailored to their communities.

Nearly 40 million people in the UK are living in areas where illegal levels of air pollution from diesel vehicles risk damaging their health (ClientEarth 2017). According to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), there are 40,000 deaths every year due to NO₂, which has been linked to cancer, asthma, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and dementia; resulting in high cost to people who suffer from these illnesses and costing the economy £20 billion yearly (RCP 2017).

The population is worried about the issue as, in 2017, 4,000 people have used air-pollution monitoring kits in the UK (Friends-of-Earth). Despite the health threats accruable from emissions, no tool exists that visualises NO₂ and CO₂ emissions in real-time. Existing travel navigation assistants (e.g. Google Maps, Apple iOS Maps, Waze, automakers navigation systems, TomTom, AA route-planner, etc) do not provide information about NO₂ and CO₂ levels. This project will develop a system for Real-Time Emissions Visualisation (REVIS) for eco-friendly travel behaviour. REVIS will use IoT-sensors to obtain the actual amount of NO₂ and CO₂ emissions on roads and highways and visualise them in real-time.

Project cost

£1,797,500.

Funding body

Innovate UK.

Duration

1 September 2018–31 August 2020.

Industrial partners

• Costain Ltd
• TerOpta
• MobiBiz
• Brunel University London. 

Project details

The REVIS system will consist of:

1. REVIS Travel Planner (RTP) - this app will visualise in real-time NO₂ and CO₂ emissions on roads providing drivers, commuters, cyclists and pedestrians with accurate emissions levels along their planned journey;
2. Emission Visualisation as-a-Service (EVaaS) is a platform that provides emissions data to navigation and travel planner providers (e.g. Google Maps, Apple iOS Map; Waze, TomTom, AA route-planner, etc) so that they can include it on their solutions;
3. REVIS Cities Emissions Map and Monitor (RCEMM) will support local and highway authorities to monitor in real-time actual NO₂ and CO^₂ levels.

REVIS aims to provide a step-change in decision-making and behavioural change for emissions reduction. REVIS will enable local authorities to devise and test emission reduction policies tailored to their communities.

IoT-sensors will be installed along roads and highways to measure in real-time the levels of NO₂ and CO₂. This instrumentation will enable to collect real-time emissions data, which will be invaluable for this project and to other applications such as future connected transport. This project will leverage cutting-edge deep learning (DL) techniques to:

1. predict future emission levels in existing roads and highways, which will inform the authorities' decision-making process regarding emissions policies;
2. predict the amount of users' emissions for future highway designs; and
3. influence travel behaviours through eco-friendly journey planning. These will contribute to improve the health of the population by reducing the critical levels of emissions in the UK.