The London Deployment
In 2024, Local Air carried out its first real-world deployment: ten sensor-equipped e-scooters operating across London for three months. This was the first time that air quality sensors had been deployed at scale on a commercial e-scooter fleet, and it taught us an enormous amount about the technology, the logistics, and the challenges of operating a distributed sensor network in a busy urban environment.
How it worked
The deployment was made possible through a partnership with Voi, who opperate one of London's e-scooter fleets. Voi provided access to their scooters and their depot facilities, and crucially, supported the project in obtaining the regulatory approvals needed to operate instrumented scooters legally on UK roads. This was a process that involved working with both the relevant highway authority and Transport for London (TfL).
Ten sensors were installed across Voi's London fleet. The sensor was designed from the outset for rapid installation: a single unit can be fitted to a scooter in approximately ten minutes, with only minimal and reversible alterations to the vehicle. No permanent modifications are made to the scooter's electrical or mechanical systems. This simplicity of installation was a deliberate design choice, and proved its value in the field.
What we gathered
Over the three months of the deployment, the ten sensors gathered over one million individual air quality readings, covering an area of more than 5 km² across the deployment zone. The data captured the full range of urban conditions, rush hour traffic, quiet nights, rain and sunshine, busy arterial roads and quieter residential streets.
The data is now being analysed by the Local Air team. Find out more about what it is telling us.
What we learned
The deployment was, by any technical measure, a success: the sensors worked, the data pipeline functioned, and the quality of the data gathered exceeded expectations. However, we also learned some important lessons about what it takes to operate a distributed sensor network in the real world.
The sensors were subject to the same rough treatment as the scooters they ride on (vibration, weather, occasional impacts). The senors survived these rugged conditions well, demonstrating the effectiveness of the project hardware.
Maintaining a fleet of electric scooters spread across a city is a logistically demanding task, our maintenance procoesses had to fit into the processes Voi already had in place. Although significant work had been put into informing Voi depot staff about the sensors, unfortunately this turned out not to be enough when the e-scooters were transferred to a different depot for an overhawl.
What's next
The London deployment proved that the Local Air approach works. We are currently seeking funding to deploy the next phase, which is to scale it up to 100 sensors, across Bristol, over three years. That deployment will be supported by a far more robust operational infrastructure, closer integration with our e-scooter operator partner Dott, and a suite of data processing tools built on everything we learned in London.
Find out more about the data we gathered, or get in touch if you'd like to be involved in the next phase.