Skip to main content

Concerto aims to reduce vehicle emissions

Led by the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London and involving a range of industrial partners, Concerto – which stands for Co-operative Networked Concept for Emission Responsive Traffic Operations – is a three-year research programme that aims to use the sophisticated test environment of the innovITS Advance city circuit to develop next-generation technologies that reduce motor vehicle emissions.
May 17, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSSLed by the Centre for Transport Studies at 500 Imperial College London and involving a range of industrial partners, Concerto – which stands for Co-operative Networked Concept for Emission Responsive Traffic Operations – is a three-year research programme that aims to use the sophisticated test environment of the 67 innovITS Advance city circuit to develop next-generation technologies that reduce motor vehicle emissions.

The Concerto programme began in the autumn of 2010 and aims to build upon previous research programmes carried out by Imperial College London, drawing together, and combining the technologies that each of them has delivered. This previous work includes the development of Vehicle Performance and Emissions Monitoring System (VPEMS) technology and both local and grid based roadside emissions monitoring systems as developed in the Mobile Environmental Sensor System Across GRID Environments (MESSAGE) project. By linking these with local weather information and precise real-time location details for each vehicle, as well as using data available from the Engine Control Unit (ECU), a wide range of potential future innovations may be possible, enabling urban traffic to behave in a co-operative and actively managed manner in order to reduce emissions and hence improve local air quality.

“We were particularly keen to use the innovITS Advance city circuit for the initial testing programme of Concerto,” said Dr Robin North, Lecturer in the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London. “This facility provides us with exactly the type of highly controllable, repeatable and measurable environment that we need for this form of research.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • GE researchers developing at-home refuelling station for NG vehicles
    July 20, 2012
    In what could help fuel widespread adoption of natural gas-powered (NG) vehicles in the US and globally, GE researchers, in partnership with Chart Industries and scientists at the University of Missouri, have been awarded a programme through Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) to develop an affordable at-home refuelling station that would meet ARPA-E’s target of $500 per station and reduce re-fuelling times from 5-8 hours to less than 1 hour. Natural gas prices are at an all-time low and t
  • Land of ITS opportunities
    February 2, 2012
    Geographically, Russia, the largest country in the world, is vast. So too are the opportunities for the global ITS community, which is why ITS Russia has been actively promoting the country and the opportunities that abound there. ITS Russia is reaching out around the world. In October, at the 17th ITS World Congress in Busan, South Korea, a cooperative agreement was signed with ITS America to promote and strengthen research, educational, and commercial cooperation in the ITS field among the two association
  • Land of ITS opportunities
    February 6, 2012
    Geographically, Russia, the largest country in the world, is vast. So too are the opportunities for the global ITS community, which is why ITS Russia has been actively promoting the country and the opportunities that abound there
  • Phoenix rises to the Smart City challenge
    December 10, 2015
    Andrew Bardin Williams looks at the City of Phoenix where voters backed a $30bn plan to revamp its transportation network to cultivate a more connected community. According to a Land Use Institute study, half of all Americans and even more millennials (63%) would like to live in a place where they do not need to use a car very often. The City of Phoenix is putting in place plans to revamp its urban development and transportation policies to meet these changing quality of life perceptions.