Noise and Emissions Monitoring and Radical Mitigation NEMO delivers cutting-edge technologies enabling emission-based tolling and mitigation solutions to reduce urban air and noise pollution from transport. Remote sensing, multifunctional barriers and novel road pavements lead the way to cleaner, quieter and healthier urban environments. NEMO´s three-step approach:
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Identify polluting and noisy vehicles through remote sensing of exhaust gases and noise Verify measurements with an accepted methodology to provide scalable solutions Cleaning and silencing of the traffic by innovative solutions in the pavement and road vicinity.
Harmful levels of air and noise pollution in Europe
If it is measured, it can be targeted and reduced
Air pollution is the largest environmental health risk in Europe. Second is noise pollution. Long-term exposure to noise and air pollution may cause direct health problems, such as sleep disturbance, stress, asthma, high blood pressure and cardiac diseases.
NEMO aims to create a new ground-breaking, purely European system to measure gaseous emissions and noise in real time from individual vehicles. The project will demonstrate automized unattended equipment that can be managed with very low operating, maintenance, and analysis costs.
Transport is the main cause of noise and air pollution in cities and produces almost a quarter of Europe’s greenhouse gas emission. It is estimated that a relatively small part of the transport fleet is responsible for a large part of emissions. High emitting vehicles account for between 3-10% of the total city fleet while they are responsible for between 30% and 60% of total NOx and PM emissions. Furthermore, emissions in real-driving conditions are often higher than those measured during the type-approval tests. To combat harmful levels of air and noise pollution, Europe needs improved monitoring and emissions control in the transport sector.
New technologies needs new policy
The introduction of new measurement methods, including advanced radars, cameras and microphones, coupled with an IT platform to harmonise measurements from different sensors allows for direct use by local and regional transport authorities. One of the possible applications of the technology is to autonomously and with great sensitivity, detect and target high emitters at a fraction of the cost of more manual methods. The new technologies enables national authorities to monitor and evaluate whether car manufacturers comply with emission and noise regulations, apply personalized tariffs based on actual emissions and prevent access or circulation to low emission zones for highly polluting or noisy vehicles.
The project will work with a multitude of areas in this field, such as; •
Technologies developed in NEMO can only become innovations with new policy- and regulatory frameworks. A system to monitor and control traffic based on real time remote measurements has never been implemented in a European city. Therefore, to scale up the system we need to work within the policy- and regulatory framework.
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EU policy development. Present a whitepaper on methods of variable pricing and access control Create standardization. Implement a scalable system based on ORSE ISO-17025 accreditation and validated by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) Create a new societal business case Methodology to calculate externalities caused by noise and emissions Collaborate with policy implementation stakeholders. The project will directly involve national traffic police, Europol and organizations related to periodical technical inspections (PTI)
New technologies lead the way to cleaner, quieter, and healthier urban environments.
MONITOR REMOTE SENSING AND DATA PLATFORM The NEMO project will develop pioneering technologies to measure and monitor air and noise pollution in transport. Different remote sensing technologies, and a data processing platform, will create new highly accurate measurement of individual vehicles, train carriages or ships. This will lead the way to for European cities to introduce autonomous emission-based tolling and access restrictions. Remote sensing technologies for exhaust emissions that will be used includes emissions quantum cascade laser and multispectral cameras. Remote sensing for noise emission includes microphone-arrays and a doppler radar. The NEMO project will develop a digital ecosystem, a data processing platform Nautilus. The platform combines real time remote sensing data with local, regional, and national data of license plates and technical information, single high emitters can be singled out.
From Laboratory To On-Site Demonstrations The NEMO project will bring tests in state-ofthe-art laboratories to real life demonstrations in different urban contexts around Europe.
Madrid, Spain In collaboration with national police and road authorities, a fixed setup of the remote sensing system will be tested in an urban setting in terms of identification of high emitters. Performance of the barrier in real traffic conditions will also be demonstrated here.
Florence, Italy Together with the municipality a dynamic setup of the remote sensing system will be tested and evaluated in terms of the communication system notifying vehicles exceeding set limits. The noise reducing road pavement will also be tested at this site
MITIGATE MULTIFUNCTIONAL BARRIERS + NEW TYEPS OF ROAD PAVEMENTS The NEMO project will demonstrate several different mitigation technologies that can reduce noise pollution and actively clean traffic exhaust emissions. A multifunctional barrier will be tested to prevent noise from spreading in the immediate surroundings while photocatalytic coating and a biofilter will reduce the distribution of NOx emissions and particles. Covered with vegetation, the barrier adds to greens aesthetics, pollination, and capture of particular matter. Further, the project will develop new noise-reducing road pavements. New asphalt mixes will focus on tire and road interaction model and target some of the issues around current technologies, such as effects and maintenance.
The Netherlands The remote sensing system to measure noise from trains will be tested along a major freight line. Data will be used for a protocol to be applied for monitoring sound from wagons where restrictions apply on sound emissions.
Valencia Port, Spain Monitoring of gaseous emissions and noise from ships and trains will be tested at Valencia port. At this site, the effectiveness of the technologies to also measure emissions from cruise ships in the port is tested.
FACTS ABOUT NEMO Partners:
NEMO is a consortium of 18 partners comprising a wealth of expertise, each a leader within their field, spread across 11 different European countries. Overall budget € 6 564 892,50 Coordination: Fundación CARTIF (Spain) Project period: 1 May 2020 – 30 April 2023
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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Grant Agreement n° 860441.