Bike couriers help monitor air pollution

Bike couriers by their very nature are already very environmentally friendly. However, in Cambridge, they are contributing even more! This time by monitoring pollution levels.

The system, developed by Eiman Kanjo, a computer scientist at Cambridge University hooks together wireless pollution sensors and sends the data from mobile phones to her research lab.

A bike courier monitoring air pollution

Air-pollution sensors and GPS units are carried inside storage bins on the couriers' bikes and with help from custom software, the phones continuously report the air quality and location back to servers in Eiman's lab.

This study is part of MESSAGE, a U.K project which aims at developing new ways to collect air pollution data using sensors on vehicles and people.