Real world emissions database reaches 250,000 vehicles

Ricardo’s on-road vehicle emissions measurement programme has measured its 250,000th vehicle, making it the largest UK resource of its type to provide an insight into real-world driving emissions.

Over a period of 12 months, Ricardo’s vehicle emissions teams have deployed remote sensing technology to measure the emissions from passing vehicles over a wide range of weather and road conditions. These measurements have been matched with vehicle information sources to provide an insight into real-world driving emissions from across the UK fleet.

Ricardo is one of the only organisations in the world to offer all three major methods of monitoring vehicle exhaust emissions: chassis dynamometer (rolling road), PEMS and remote-sensing of vehicle emissions. The company provides support on all aspects of air quality management.

The database takes into account differences between fuels, powertrain technologies, driving conditions, vehicle age and environmental effects that include ambient temperature and road gradient.

Ricardo is now supporting local authorities and the automotive industry to better understand their own sources of road transport emissions, using these data to inform evidence-based air quality plans.

For local authorities the data provides information for air quality management strategies, such as Clean Air Zones. Automotive manufacturers are using the data to evaluate the contribution of their vehicles to urban emissions under real driving conditions..

“It is fantastic to have reached the 250,000 vehicle milestone, which we have achieved thanks to the hard work of our vehicle emissions remote sensing teams and the support of our partners and clients throughout local government and industry”, said Dr David Carslaw, Ricardo’s air quality knowledge leader who is spearheading the remote sensing work.

“We have only started to scrape the surface of the insight these data will provide and the opportunities they offer to support improvements in air quality across the UK.”

Over the past 12 months, Dr Carslaw has published several short technical insights and analyses from Ricardo’s emissions research. These include thoughts on how vehicle age and mileage impact emissions, how colder winters affect ambient concentrations of NOx, and exploring what the data tell us about removal of diesel particulate filters within the UK’s vehicle fleet.