Key to the success of developing or improving the efficiency of on-line air quality tools is the availability and accessibility of essential non-air quality data sets. This includes information held by government departments, agencies and other organisations who have not been involved in this pilot study. In order to make progress these organisations needed to be included early in the next phases of the study, and the costs and barriers for integration of these data sets identified.
Some issues with key data sets have already been identified through discussions with the data providers and users:
3.4.1 Meteorological Data
Meteorological data for analysis purposes are mainly provided by the Met Office
Weather Service. This is a Trading Fund within the Ministry of Defence, operating on a commercial basis under set targets. Requests for meteorological data from air quality specialists are therefore currently treated on a commercial basis and may incur significant expense.
The most representative meteorological measurements for a particular study may not necessarily be from a measurement station since there is not always one in the vicinity
therefore be offered instead.
Within these constraints the Met Office
sets which are currently available for use by air quality specialists in the UK.
Assuming that there are no plans to make the UK national meteorological data sets freely available and immediately accessible to everyone, other data sets may be considered for the purposes of this study:
• Local authority air quality monitoring stations are often configured to make their own real measurements of wind speed, wind direction, temperature & relative
masts. Whilst these data are obviously specific to the local situation and not rigorously quality assured by meteorological experts, it is possible that they could be made freely available to an integrated data solution.
• Data from meteorological modelling funded by Defra or others through other UK contracts example the UK Air Quality Forecasting or Tropospheric ozone modelling contract. Forecast data fields are currently produced on a daily basis which could be made available t
Again these data will not be fully quality assured by meteorological experts, but the Open source WRF model which is used for air quality forecasting is widely accepted for use within the air quality community and can provide output fi
Figure 3.1 Realtime WRF model used for air quality forecasting
Meteorological data for analysis purposes are mainly provided by the Met Office - the UK’s National rading Fund within the Ministry of Defence, operating on a commercial basis under set targets. Requests for meteorological data from air quality specialists are therefore currently treated on a commercial basis and may incur significant expense.
representative meteorological measurements for a particular study may not necessarily be from a measurement station since there is not always one in the vicinity – modelled results may
Within these constraints the Met Office does offer the most comprehensive and quality assured data sets which are currently available for use by air quality specialists in the UK.
Assuming that there are no plans to make the UK national meteorological data sets freely available accessible to everyone, other data sets may be considered for the purposes of this
Local authority air quality monitoring stations are often configured to make their own real measurements of wind speed, wind direction, temperature & relative humidity on 3 metre met masts. Whilst these data are obviously specific to the local situation and not rigorously quality assured by meteorological experts, it is possible that they could be made freely available to an
eteorological modelling funded by Defra or others through other UK contracts example the UK Air Quality Forecasting or Tropospheric ozone modelling contract. Forecast data fields are currently produced on a daily basis which could be made available to other researchers.
Again these data will not be fully quality assured by meteorological experts, but the Open source WRF model which is used for air quality forecasting is widely accepted for use within the air quality community and can provide output fields of the type illustrated below.
Realtime WRF model used for air quality forecasting
the UK’s National rading Fund within the Ministry of Defence, operating on a commercial basis under set targets. Requests for meteorological data from air quality specialists are therefore
representative meteorological measurements for a particular study may not necessarily be modelled results may
does offer the most comprehensive and quality assured data
Assuming that there are no plans to make the UK national meteorological data sets freely available accessible to everyone, other data sets may be considered for the purposes of this
Local authority air quality monitoring stations are often configured to make their own real-time humidity on 3 metre met masts. Whilst these data are obviously specific to the local situation and not rigorously quality assured by meteorological experts, it is possible that they could be made freely available to an eteorological modelling funded by Defra or others through other UK contracts – for example the UK Air Quality Forecasting or Tropospheric ozone modelling contract. Forecast data o other researchers.
Again these data will not be fully quality assured by meteorological experts, but the Open source WRF model which is used for air quality forecasting is widely accepted for use within the air
3.4.2 Traffic Data
This is often considered as difficult to get hold of, however our initial research indicates that information from the Highways Agency is in fact freely available as a real-time data feed or through historical data files:
The real time information required on Traffic Flows on the Highways Agency's network can be obtained on a Datex II feed. More information concerning the Travel Information Highway (TIH) can be found at http://www.tih.org.uk/index.php/Home. This data provides traffic volumes and vehicle classifications for all links across the network.
Historic Traffic Data is also freely available and access to this can be obtained at the following website http://trads2.co.uk/.
Annual Average Daily Traffic Flows are also available as downloadable files and through interactive maps on the Department for Transport’s website at http://www.dft.gov.uk/matrix/.
Kings College also referenced the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition System) as a traffic data source.
The data cover all major roads i.e. motorways and A roads and excludes minor roads. The roads are broken up into a series of links with each link comprising a stretch of major road between 2 consecutive junctions with other major roads. A link may also start/end at a local authority boundary or an urban/rural area boundary. A traffic count takes place on each link of the major road network and is used to estimate the annual average daily traffic flows. These data and the associated road network information can be viewed and downloaded from the web site for each year from 1999 to 2008.
Figure 3.2 Daily Traffic Data screenshot, Department for Transport
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