Caporegime
At least if ULEZ was going towards cleaning up the water down there it would make a little sense
London pollution & ULEZ
- Thread starter jonneymendoza
- Start date
At least if ULEZ was going towards cleaning up the water down there it would make a little sense
Soldato
Didn't have any problem with the air quality when I was there last 
The amount of Londoners on the other hand...!
The amount of Londoners on the other hand...!
Commissario
You know the Thames is one of the cleanest city rivers in the world? It only looks brown because it's a muddy, silty riverbed.
Soldato
Its considerable better than it used to be but its no where near as good as a country village. Country villages don't have thousands of diesel engines pumping out particulates all day. And cow/pig/chicken poop being spread does not count as pollution, it might not smell great but it won't have people struggling with breathing difficulties such as asthma.
I think it was Greg James on Radio 1 that made the dumbest statement ever that he blows black boogers when visiting the country because of all the soil in the air lol. Everyone was like WTF no.One of the "joys" of nipping into 'town' for the day is spending the evening blowing black boogers out of your nose
But I haven't had black bookers in London ages --- changing the brake pads on the tube was a key moment.
Matt Walliams swimming it was pretty grim though.
Caporegime
That's like saying someone is the best looking ugly bird you've ever seen. She's still dog rough!
well I didn't mean London specifically but like generally around the country.
seems like sewage is getting dumped here, there and everywhere for the last few years.
Londons not the only place with the Air Quality thing either, they started it in Newcastle Upon Tyne recently after installing ait quality sensors in some really suspect places
so lets put an air quality sensor next to a bit Bus station on a main road at a nice height to catch exhaust fumes.
that's a multi story parking lot in the background, and just behind that parking lot is yet another bus station...
if you go looking for dirty air then surely you can find it really easily and then start charging vehicles.
when its setup like a scam it probably is.
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Commissario
IIRC they put the sensors all over the place, and I suspect that isn't so much a "dodgy" location as the best location for one in that area for the job they want it do to, they do them "roadside", "kerbside" and "background" to try and do slightly different jobs, IE the "roadside" lets them monitor how bad specific known heavy sources are, whilst the "background" ones which are more likely to be in quiet side streets etc let them know how it's spreading/general effect.
That one looks like it's one of the more basic "mid term" manually monitored sensors that simply takes one sample over the space of something between a day and a couple of weeks (by basically collecting the muck in the air in a trap/filter) and can be used from memory as a rough indicator of what you're breathing in if you live/work there.
So for example they might have that one there, then a "background" monitoring station a couple of hundred meters away on a quiet street that doesn't get the heavy traffic so they can get an idea of both how bad pollution is at a bottleneck/source location and some distance away, which combined with weather information means they can model how the pollution is spreading and what sort of things can be done to say reduce the effect of traffic in a busy area on the local residential areas.
It's also worth noting that a lot of the sensors they are using now allow for quite precise sampling times (and you'll likely walk past thinking it's a telecoms box with vents), so they can know what the pollution is like when a bus station shuts down for the night, or has a reduced schedule, or when there is more/less traffic generally, and even what difference different types of traffic makes by combining the information from the pollution sensor with other sources of information (ranging from simple old fashioned traffic surveys, to knowing when the school rush is, or that there was an event going on that resulted in a lot more coaches passing through at a specific time).
Just because you don't know the sampling methodology doesn't mean it's a scam, i'm not saying that the results can't be skewed, but I suspect for the official monitoring the information and methodology is probably available to scientists/researches if not the public in general as it's not just being used for things like the "emissions zone" but general health monitoring and research.
Any sampling for health research etc tends to mean it has to meet specific quality standards for collection*, which will include standards on placement of sampling equipment and information on both that location and the equipment so that the data from all sites is of the same sort of reliability.
Basically that sensor is probably there specifically because of the bus station, quite likely to monitor the effect it has at that location, but would be one specific data point amongst potentially hundreds.
There is a site that shows the rough location of these sensors around London, including what they monitor and the classification for the position (and photos), and a quick glance suggests they have hundreds of them, with some along key roads, some in mainly pedestrian areas and some in the likes of residential areas and kids play areas.
*Probably some internationally agreed one, so data from different countries can be compared.
That one looks like it's one of the more basic "mid term" manually monitored sensors that simply takes one sample over the space of something between a day and a couple of weeks (by basically collecting the muck in the air in a trap/filter) and can be used from memory as a rough indicator of what you're breathing in if you live/work there.
So for example they might have that one there, then a "background" monitoring station a couple of hundred meters away on a quiet street that doesn't get the heavy traffic so they can get an idea of both how bad pollution is at a bottleneck/source location and some distance away, which combined with weather information means they can model how the pollution is spreading and what sort of things can be done to say reduce the effect of traffic in a busy area on the local residential areas.
It's also worth noting that a lot of the sensors they are using now allow for quite precise sampling times (and you'll likely walk past thinking it's a telecoms box with vents), so they can know what the pollution is like when a bus station shuts down for the night, or has a reduced schedule, or when there is more/less traffic generally, and even what difference different types of traffic makes by combining the information from the pollution sensor with other sources of information (ranging from simple old fashioned traffic surveys, to knowing when the school rush is, or that there was an event going on that resulted in a lot more coaches passing through at a specific time).
Just because you don't know the sampling methodology doesn't mean it's a scam, i'm not saying that the results can't be skewed, but I suspect for the official monitoring the information and methodology is probably available to scientists/researches if not the public in general as it's not just being used for things like the "emissions zone" but general health monitoring and research.
Any sampling for health research etc tends to mean it has to meet specific quality standards for collection*, which will include standards on placement of sampling equipment and information on both that location and the equipment so that the data from all sites is of the same sort of reliability.
Basically that sensor is probably there specifically because of the bus station, quite likely to monitor the effect it has at that location, but would be one specific data point amongst potentially hundreds.
There is a site that shows the rough location of these sensors around London, including what they monitor and the classification for the position (and photos), and a quick glance suggests they have hundreds of them, with some along key roads, some in mainly pedestrian areas and some in the likes of residential areas and kids play areas.
*Probably some internationally agreed one, so data from different countries can be compared.
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Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 7,653
isnt that the perfect place to put it if your goal is to find the worst places in a city for air quality? Yes it will be important to know the average air quality and the areas where it is best....... but also if it were me i would want to know the "hot spots" as well.well I didn't mean London specifically but like generally around the country.
seems like sewage is getting dumped here, there and everywhere for the last few years.
Londons not the only place with the Air Quality thing either, they started it in Newcastle Upon Tyne recently after installing ait quality sensors in some really suspect places
so lets put an air quality sensor next to a bit Bus station on a main road at a nice height to catch exhaust fumes.
that's a multi story parking lot in the background, and just behind that parking lot is yet another bus station...
if you go looking for dirty air then surely you can find it really easily and then start charging vehicles.
when its setup like a scam it probably is.
its an extreme but it would be like saying we can all go to Chernobyl for some post apocalyptic tourism .... no need to test the radiation levels because "on average" they wont kill you.... ignoring the fact there are some really dodgy areas still. Like i say its an extreme and on another level..... but people do, and have died with the cause directly tied to city pollution.
that said..... I will grant you that rather than blaming dirty cars for the air pollution outside a main bus stop, it could be that the culprit is more likely to be the bloody great big busses.
much like the current cars.............. whilst i dont want to see perfectly good busses with another X years of life in them scrapped, i would wish that when new stock go on the roads it was electric. it is doable, Loads of busses in China are electric
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I noticed that everywhere. Also how quiet it was with no road noise or airliners in the background.
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Soldato
Seems very sensible to me to monitor the air at a place where pedestrians will gather, like a bus station.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 7,653
it was amazing going for walks....... there are some really nice country walks around the town i live in.... but as nice as it looks there is always the background hum of traffic. When we were in lockdown it was almost like going for a walk back home before i moved out when i lived in a tiny village.
I also noticed how after the lockdowns ended I got re-diagnosed with asthma (previously having had it as a child). Don't worry though, because our councillor for transport has stated pollution isn't a issue for coastal places).
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Same. I live in central London and use the tube a lot - this just isn't a thing tbh. I vaguely remember people talking about it a lot in the 90s?
The water though - dunno if it's pollution but I can't stand the taste of London water. I've had water filters and stuff fitted and it's way better.
Soldato
Can agree about the water. I have a filter as well. I’m used to water from Yorkshire which is like drinking bottled water.
Associate
I've had the black snot within the last year... If those living in London haven't it must be either:
- its less general than it was thanks to EV taxis/buses etc & is now specific to something - maybe braking dust on a single underground line perhaps, that you don't use?
- your nose isn't working properly, and all the stuff that my snot captured you have consumed unrestricted - see Doctor
- its less general than it was thanks to EV taxis/buses etc & is now specific to something - maybe braking dust on a single underground line perhaps, that you don't use?
- your nose isn't working properly, and all the stuff that my snot captured you have consumed unrestricted - see Doctor
It got busier in our local park during lock down.
No one had anything else to do. So rather than seeing am average of 1 person/group per walk I'd see 5-10!
Its calmed right down to 1 now.
But it was so quiet on the roads on bike. I do miss lockdown!
No one had anything else to do. So rather than seeing am average of 1 person/group per walk I'd see 5-10!
Its calmed right down to 1 now.
But it was so quiet on the roads on bike. I do miss lockdown!
Soldato
Would explain a lot to be honest.