Urban Air Quality Monitoring Using Vehicular Sensor Networks

The quality of air is a major concern in modern cities as pollutants have been demonstrated to have significant impact on human health. Networks of fixed monitoring stations have been deployed in urban areas to provide authorities with data to define and enforce dynamically policies to reduce pollutants, for instance by issuing traffic regulation measures. However, fixed networks require careful placement of monitoring stations to be effective. Moreover, changes in urban arrangement, activities, or regulations may affect considerably the monitoring model, especially when budget constraints prevent from relocating stations or adding new ones to the network. In this chapter we discuss a different approach to environmental monitoring through mobile monitoring devices implementing a Vehicular Sensor Network (VSN) to be deployed on the public transport bus fleet of Palermo.