Gophr Uses Wireless Sensors to Map Pollution

Gophr Uses Wireless Sensors to Map Pollution

Bike couriers in London, where NO2 levels along Oxford Street have been found to be among the highest in the world, are especially vulnerable to these environmental health risks. London, along with the English cities of Birmingham and Leeds, failed to meet safety limits on NO2, set by the European Union, for five years. And a 2015 study conducted by King's College London estimates that long-term exposure to air pollution leads to 9,500 premature deaths in that city each year.

In order to quantify and monitor the air pollution to which these couriers are exposed, a U.K.-based delivery service called Gophr plans to outfit its London cycle couriers with sensors and location-tracking tags. The sensor tags are being provided by CleanSpace, a company that is building a crowdsourced map to measure air pollution in London. CleanSpace is owned by Drayson Technologies, a technology firm founded by Lord Paul Drayson, a British entrepreneur and politician. The sensor tags are powered by an RF-energy harvesting module made by Freevolt, which Drayson Technologies also owns. The module harvests energy from 1.8 GHz (GSM) and 2.4 GHz (Wi-Fi) signals within its range.