STREETBOX URBAN POLLUTION MONITOR
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This page, set up and run by Dr. Ben Croxford, (Last edited April 2007)
HISTORY I was taken on as a post doctoral researcher at the Bartlett, UCL in 1994. The project was to investigate the spatial distribution of air pollution. The chosen solution was to use carbon monoxide as a proxy for the more general term “air pollution”. CO is relatively easy to monitor as it is in ppm quantities in city air and is a gas, (rather than the ppb concentrations of Nitrogen oxides, and the less easy to measure micrograms/m3 concentrations of particulate matter). An electrochemical sensor from City Technology was selected as the key component, and later versions of the same sensor are still used. This is a very robust sensor and could be tweaked to measure CO very accurately. The second key component was a Tattletale model 4 datalogger board from Onset Computer Corporation that ran TTBASIC, some info here. The first prototypes ran on a 6V lead acid battery with a 7.2V solar panel charging them, other sensors were, Temperature and relative humidity RH% and air speed sensor (based on the innards of a smoke alarm). Ash, the technician in the Bartlett at the time, helped me construct about 20 of them in the summer of 1995.	MORE HISTORY This early prototype was used attached to lampposts in the research project documented here. Later research projects used refurbished monitors for indoor monitoring in offices, and homes. An attempt was made to commercialise the product, but one member of the team had serious health problems and the Tattetale Model 4 was being discontinued. The product apparently was not patentable so the first attempt to commercialise the StreetBox ended. One of the team members, Learian, was keen to continue and to try and develop a new product based on the old one. I acted as an unpaid advisor to Learian and put them in touch with Chris Martin from Energy Monitoring Company Ltd who I knew was developing a new ultra low power wireless datalogging board with Martin Lowndes called the Etherlog 3000 RDT 3000 radio data logger , running the LUCID programming language. After a while, the Learian StreetBox appeared on the market. This has since become a widely used indicative monitor for many local authorities throughout the UK. In 2002 funding was secured which enabled the StreetBox to be further developed into the ICOM portable CO monitor (photo here), this had similar accuracy but was much smaller and could be used much more easily in research projects in homes, this could also be posted. Information and availability of either product should be addressed to Lee Fairbrother at Routesafe. Other competitor products are listed on the right hand side of this page the LASCAR and the HOBO are not as accurate as the ICOM nor do they have as fine a resolution. Please email me if any information is wrong or there are other products that could be listed here. RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS  - See UCL research publications database, click here for up to date list.  - Also see Richard Milton and Anthony Steed who connected an ICOM to a GPS and developed a method of  monitoring CO while moving about in the city.  - Also see CASA page here, and an excellent dynamic web page of results from monitoring for the BBC programme “Don’t Die Young” on Lungs.	Streetbox on Tottenham Court Road Also see Grenville Stephenson holding an early prototype StreetBox. CO Datalogger Links  - StreetBox, and ICOM, Information available from Routesafe  (contact Routesafe)  - HOBO H11–001 CO monitor from Onset (~$240)  - Lascar CO monitor EL-USB-CO from Lascar electronics (~$97)
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