Combine Los Angeles’ geography, climate, car culture, and enormous population and you get the perfect recipe for smog. Despite being a national leader in green initiatives and standards, our dependence on cars is one of the main factors that keep Southern Californian skies polluted.
That’s why a team of computer scientists, urban planners, and atmospheric scientists have come together to reduce air pollution by changing driving and traffic patterns that contribute the most to emissions and congestion.
As reported by the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, researchers at UCLA and Rutgers University are working on an ambitious project to create a system that will monitor traffic patterns and air pollution in real time and suggest alternate routes to drivers that reduce congestion and emissions in “pollution hot spots.”
Reducing emissions in pollution hot spots is an important part of urban air quality because higher concentrations of pollutants make it more likely for chemical reactions that produce smog to take place.
While expanding the underwhelming public transportation system in Los Angeles could certainly help with air quality, this unique approach of combining traffic management and real time air quality data offers a way to make our skies cleaner. And of course, there’s the added benefit of less time stuck in traffic.
