Skip to main content

British Safety Council launches app for measuring air pollution in London

The British Safety Council (BSC) and Kings College London have launched an app for outdoor workers to measure exposure to air pollution – an increasing preoccupation for the ITS industry. The Canairy app could help improve workzone safety by providing employees, and their bosses, with information to help them reduce exposure to air pollution. The app is being launched as part of the BSC’s ‘Time to Breathe’ campaign, which seeks to encourage companies, policymakers and regulators to take the risks of
March 11, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

The British Safety Council (BSC) and Kings College London have launched an app for outdoor workers to measure exposure to air pollution – an increasing preoccupation for the ITS industry.

The Canairy app could help improve workzone safety by providing employees, and their bosses, with information to help them reduce exposure to air pollution.

The app is being launched as part of the BSC’s ‘Time to Breathe’ campaign, which seeks to encourage companies, policymakers and regulators to take the risks of air pollution to outdoor workers more seriously.

BSC chairman Lawrence Waterman says the campaign will highlight “every employer’s duty of care” for the risks from ambient air pollution. He bemoans the fact that the Health and Safety Executive does not regulate the ‘ambient environment’ and says the UK government’s recent Clean Air Strategy “had little or nothing to say about people who spend their working lives outdoors”.

Canairy draws on the London Air Quality Network pollution map at King’s which shows current pollution levels across London with the worker’s GPS to calculate their exposure to pollution on an hourly basis. Once the exposure exceeds 1819 World Health Organisation (WHO) limits for the concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) the app notifies the user and suggests tips such as working away from traffic or putting up a screen barrier.

The BSC is now calling on London-based employers to trial Canairy to help build an accurate picture of the exposure faced by outdoor workers.

“Given that we don’t even know how many outdoor workers there are in the UK, we need those authorities with responsibility for our health and environment to work together on this issue,” Waterman concludes.

Canairy is available on both 493 Apple and 1812 Android devices.

More information on the BSC is available on the %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external website false https://www.britsafe.org/about-us/introducing-the-british-safety-council/about-the-british-safety-council/ false false%>.

Related Content

  • May 23, 2018
    AVs could make driving ‘more dangerous’: report
    Automated vehicles (AVs) could make driving more dangerous – that is the stark suggestion from a new report by the International Transport Forum (ITF). The report - Safer Roads with Automated Vehicles? – casts doubt on claims that 90% of road deaths could be avoided because the introduction of AVs would eliminate human error. ITF says such claims are at best “untested”.
  • May 3, 2019
    Gig launches electric car-share service in Sacramento
    Gig has launched its an electric car-share service in Sacramento, California, and will award one member of its programme a year of free driving. Gig says members can participate in the competition by taking a trip with the service until 31 May. The company says the app allows users to see available cars and book up to 30 minutes in advance or instantly choose any of its vehicles which are display a green windshield light. The car can be unlocked via a smartphone and be driven from using a power butt
  • August 29, 2019
    Lime and rivals form Nordic Micromobility Association
    Lime and its competitors Tier and Voi have formed the Nordic Micromobility Association to promote safety standards for electric scooters. The association will seek to strengthen relationships between Nordic cities and micromobility businesses as well as reduce emissions. Earlier this year, Voi announced its plans to launch e-scooters in Lisbon as part of a wider ambition to expand in Europe. The association’s members are not the only companies working to improve the safety of e-scooters. Last ye
  • November 30, 2018
    ITS Australia appoints first academic to board of directors
    ITS Australia has appointed Professor Majid Sarvi from the University of Melbourne to its board of directors. Sarvi, the founder of transport technology programme AIMES, is the first academic to join the board. AIMES (Australian Integrated Multimodal EcoSystem) includes the university’s live test bed on Melbourne’s streets, and has close links with Michigan Department of Transportation. Sarvi described it as a “great honour to be elected by my peers in the ITS industry and to have the opportunity t