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

  • Covid-19 cleared the air: ITS can keep it clean
    July 31, 2020
    Covid-19 has created cleaner air: ITS can help keep it that way – but it’s not going to be straightforward, as Graham Anderson discovers
  • Driving forward cooperative intersection safety applications
    July 24, 2012
    Gregory Davis, FHWA, John Harding, NHTSA, and Mike Schagrin, ITS Joint Program Office (RITA) chart the course for cooperative intersection safety applications being pursued as part of the IntelliDrive programme. Crashes at intersections accounted for 8,703 highway fatalities in the US in 2008. Research and development is moving forward on IntelliDriveSM safety applications designed to help drivers avoid intersection accidents. These new safety systems could substantially drive down the highway death and inj
  • Mobility technology ‘creates opportunities and challenges’ for cutting emissions
    July 1, 2016
    A new study by the Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) at the University of Leeds, commissioned by the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (LowCVP) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) finds that better coordination and connectivity between vehicles and infrastructure is likely to improve energy efficiency, as well as potentially make road transport safer and quicker. The LowCVP says that the combination of connectivity, automation plus shared vehicle ownership and use has the potential to m
  • The future of in-vehicle navigation systems
    February 3, 2012
    TRL's Alan Stevens looks at the evolution and future prospects of in-vehicle navigation devices. Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) plays a crucial role in the safety of vehicles on our roads. Until we achieve full automation (and that's a debatable prospect anyway) a driver's interaction with the vehicle - all the controls, information and systems - holds a pivotal role in safe driving.