Mobile technologies and personalized environmental information for supporting sustainable mobility in Oslo: The Citi-Sense-MOB approach

Abstract

Urban and peri-urban growth is increasing world-wide and Europe is now one of the most urbanized continents in the world. Oslo is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe. This creates pressure on its infrastructure, including traffic and environmental urban quality. Additionally, vehicular traffic is a major contributor to CO2 emissions, which impacts climate change. It is recognized that air quality is a major factor for human health however, although different measures have been implemented, improving air quality and lowering carbon emissions still remains an unsolved problem in Oslo. The main objective of Citi-Sense-MOB is to demonstrate how using innovative technology to continuously measure environmental data at the road level combined with innovative Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can help to create a dynamic city infrastructure for realtime city management, access to personalized environmental information and sustainable development. The output from the project will be mobile services for citizens and authorities based on the use of near real-time data on air quality and CO2 emissions at road level. The societal importance of these services arises from a need to mitigate the effects of air pollution and climate change, and to combat respiratory diseases related to traffic-related air pollution. In order to motivate citizens to use the information generated by the project, Citi-Sense-MOB will provide them with personalized environmental information, as for instance alerting systems when pollution levels exceed a critical threshold. Customized information will also be provided to authorities consisting of detailed air quality maps at high spatial resolution and an evaluation of possibilities to reduce CO2 emissions by improving driving practices in public urban fleets.