Roadvent ®

“Although progress has been made in reducing vehicle emissions in urban locations, hotspots still exist where traffic is idling or moving slowly. To date, there has been no effective way of removing pollution at roadside other than banning vehicles such as in the Clean Streets programme.

Roadvent provides a promising viable alternative to banning traffic as the system sucks up pollution at the road surface before it can disperse to nearby pavements. Early tests of the system demonstrate significant reduction in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations, one of the major pollutants emitted from diesel vehicles.”

“In terms of how the health impacts of NO2 and PM2.5 could be reduced, I think that the Roadvent technology could play a significant role if local authorities quickly deployed it in appropriate locations. For example, the evidence is well established on how air pollution impacts on both pedestrians and drivers when vehicles are idling in traffic and Roadvent is designed to mitigate against exactly this.

Even a reduction of 1µg/m3 on average could have a significant impact on the relative risk for respiratory and cardiovascular episodes while also reducing the life years lost within the population as well as loss in productivity at work due to days lost.

As governments seek to revise their air quality objectives in readiness for new legislation, in partnership with local authorities, they need to be focusing on priority sites where technologies like Roadvent can help achieve target reductions for PM2.5 and NO2 while simultaneously improving health and wellbeing.”

“All people have an inalienable right to breathe clean air. Sadly, the reality is that millions of people across our urban areas are trapped living with the disastrous health implications of roadside air pollution. Therefore the contributions of companies such as Roadvent are invaluable. Like many others, I will be watching their technology closely and look forward to seeing it make an important contribution to creating healthier, greener and more prosperous communities.”

“It has been really nice to see the system in operation. The data from the testing is compelling, showing the system to take the levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from an unhealthy amount above the limits as recommended by the World Health Organisation, to below those limits. If that was to be rolled out worldwide, it really could make a remarkable difference. I believe it is something that should be taken forward and I think Pollution Solution have done a great job in the production.”

“We recognise that the presence of narrow streets with continuous buildings on either side creates street canyons which exacerbate the build-up of pollutants from vehicle emissions; and emissions management may be a short to medium term solution whilst more vehicles change from conventional fuels to electricity and hydrogen.

The Roadvent system appears to offer such an engineered solution and could provide transitional mitigation which would achieve compliance with the air quality objective for nitrogen dioxide in one of our air quality management areas until this can be sustained by a cleaner vehicle fleet and travel alternatives.”