While using public transportation rather than driving a personal vehicle on the road can help reduce pollution, several aspects of the experience for passengers could be improved. Poor air quality at numerous metropolitan stations has been a major worry for London Underground, the public rail system commonly referred to as The Tube.
Tanya Beri created an app to assist users in selecting the 11 lines and 272 stations of the London Underground that have the least amount of air pollution.
Less than 25 tiny particles per cubic meter of air are the safe limit for healthy air in the UK, according to Berit, who spoke to The Guardian. On the underground, it can reach 200 per cubic meter in some locations. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Beri’s software will let users select routes depending on air quality levels, similar to apps that provide the quickest route to a location.
In contrast to a slower route on the Metropolitan line, which has roughly 50 particles per cubic meter, the fastest route from North Harrow station to Canary Wharf on the Jubilee line would reach 220 particles per cubic meter. Users of the app might receive these alerts, enabling them to choose the less polluted route.
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Even 50 particles per cubic meter are greater than the UK’s limit for particulate matter and even the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines, which are 5 micrograms per cubic meter per year and 15 micrograms per cubic meter per day. But when it comes to human health, the variation in pollutant exposure caused by diverse transit routes can be astounding.
According to the UK’s Taskforce for Lung Health, exposure to particulate matter is connected to adverse health outcomes such as asthma, COPD, stroke, lung cancer, and coronary heart disease. Additionally, poor air quality is linked to more than 36,000 annual deaths in England alone.
