Using air quality monitoring sensors to demonstrate the benefits of pedestrianising a street in London Westminster

Introduction

The estate owner in London Westminster was facing the challenge of improving the air quality
in the neighbourhood. To address this, they wanted to pedestrianise a street through the estate.
However, convincing the local authorities to do so was a major hurdle. To overcome this, the
estate decided to use air quality monitoring sensors to measure the air quality whilst
temporarily getting permission to close the street to traffic on a trial basis.

Methodology

The estate decided to work with AirScape, which has the capability to monitor an array of
pollutants at street level, in real time. This enabled the estate to compare the difference
between the pedestrianised street and other nearby streets for comparison. The air quality
monitoring sensors were able to measure the air quality in real time, allowing the estate to
quickly detect changes.

Results

The sensors showed that the street with pedestrianisation demonstrated significantly lower
levels of NO2 than other nearby sensors. This provided the estate with evidence to present to
the local authorities