93% of Londoners believe that air quality in the capital is an issue, with more than 40% reporting that their health has been negatively affected by London's air pollution. Despite this, the risks of pollution inhalation are difficult to understand and quantify.
Initiatives such as the World Air Quality Index and DEFRA's UK AIR Project provide local exposure information, however this information is difficult to relate to an individual's risk without an understanding of respiration rates, particle deposition in the lungs and particle dynamics in different transport microenvironments.
The Clean Commutes project investigates the possibility of modelling individual exposure during commutes and other journeys, using mathematical data from various studies of London's transport microenvironments, respiration rates calculated by the US Environmental Protection Agency and particle size estimation methods proposed by Rivas et. al in their paper: "Exposure to air pollutants during commuting in London: are there inequalities among different socio-economic groups?".
This webapp is designed to allow people to monitor the air pollution close to my flat from a both low time-resolution monitoring station and a much higher time-resolution low-cost sensing setup, above, and forecast the exposure they're likely to recieve when taking a journey. Further, the tool allows people to make informed choices about reducing their PM2.5 exposure through choosing alternative, lower-exposure routes where possible.