Air Pollution Data via Bike Courier

New Scientist reports on a project in the UK where bike messengers carry sensors and GPS units and use cell phones to report air pollution.

[Eiman] Kanjo [the computer scientist at Cambridge University] and colleagues gave local cycle couriers air-pollution sensors and GPS units that connect to their cellphones via Bluetooth. Custom software lets the phone constantly report the current air quality and location to servers back in the lab.

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The sensors are carried inside storage bins on the couriers’ bikes and record levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and nitrogen dioxide.
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The Cambridge research is part of a UK project, called MESSAGE, developing new ways to collect air pollution data using sensors on vehicles and people.

Project details and maps are here. I first heard about this vision for data capture in one of the most memorable interviews I ever did, with David Rejeski from the Wilson Center in 2003 (pdf).