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

  • Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    July 19, 2018
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s
  • Reducing congestion with Tomtom's historical traffic data
    December 5, 2012
    Historical traffic data provided by TomTom is being used by the local government in Spain’s Basque region to reduce road congestion at less cost. Old habits die hard. Photos from as far back as the 1930s show people counting cars by the roadside in order to provide congestion data to those running road networks. Today, such techniques are still used, albeit augmented by a range of automation technologies such as inductive loops, infra-red sensors and number plate recognition. Even with these advances, howe
  • Cost benefit: Toronto retimings tame traffic trauma
    July 11, 2018
    Canada’s largest city reckons that it is saving its taxpayers’ money simply by altering the way traffic lights work. David Crawford reviews Toronto’s ambitious plans to ease congestion. Toronto, Canada’s largest metropolis (and the fourth largest in North America), has saved its residents CAN$53 (US$42.4) for every CAN$1 (US$0.80) spent over a 2012-2016 traffic signal retiming programme, according to figures released by its Transportation Services Division. The programme covered 1,275 signals (the city’s to
  • Joining the dots: four ways to help cities make the connection
    May 18, 2018
    Smoothing the path to connected transportation systems in urban areas all round the world takes a lot of planning: Cisco’s Kyle Connor lays out the four key areas on which he thinks cities should focus. Forward-thinking cities around the world are exploring innovative, new ways to leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and related technologies to create more connected and efficient transportation systems. Through greater digitisation and connectivity, cities can optimise public transit routes, reduce