BRUSSELS, June 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Citizens of Helsinki today
took part in the first "Ambiciti" walk
organised in Finland. The walk was
open to all interested in the urban environment and wellbeing and
was organized by EIT Digital, Forum Virium
Helsinki and Ambiciti, the first
worldwide free collaborative application for noise and air
pollution data at a street-level resolution.
(Logo:
http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/483248/eit_Digital_Logo.jpg
)
Ambiciti, a global environmental data service combines
pre-modelled noise and air pollution data with crowdsourced
obtained noise data from application users' smartphones. Ambiciti
has already been introduced in Paris
(France) and the San Francisco Bay
Area (USA). The next
Helsinki walk is already planned
for the autumn.
Valerie Issarny, co-founder of Ambiciti said:
"Ambiciti is the first worldwide free collaborative application
for noise and air pollution data at a street-level resolution. It
provides the access to the air pollution levels of the users' home
street and routes and allows them to plan their routes as to
minimize the exposure pollution."
The participants of the first Helsinki Ambiciti walk measured
noise pollution with their smartphones during a two kilometres long
walk organised in the surroundings of one of the busiest entry
routes to the city during the morning rush hour peak. After the
walk, measurements were collected, merged to the pre-computed
models and pollution exposure during the walk analysed.
How Ambiciti works?
Ambiciti computes the hourly air pollution maps for the current
and the four next days. Maps are created by mathematical models
that are calibrated with local effective measurements when
available. In Helsinki, the base
data on air pollution, buildings, and traffic is obtained from the
open data provided by the City of
Helsinki authorities and amended with additional data from
the City Planning Department.
Models include data related to meteorology dynamics and urban
morphology such as transports streams regarding time, noise or air
emissions and air pollution imported from distant locations to the
city. Traffic data is used for noise and air pollution models -
residential and industrial data for computing air pollution models.
Further, the models integrate physical specificities of areas such
as streets and urban canyons, buildings, and compute the
propagation of pollutants in the streets.
The street level noise data can be calibrated with data gathered
by the Ambiciti mobile application users. The mobile application is
available for all devices using Android or iOS operating systems
and can be downloaded for free in the respective application
stores. The user interface is in English.
Any user of Ambiciti mobile application can choose to share
his/her localized noise measurements through space and time. Two
modes allow this: a continuous measurement mode and a journey mode
(more precise). The sent, user-collected data is integrated with
pre-modelled data to provide better maps through time.
The crowdsourced noise data is collected by smartphone
microphones. Users must activate the function.
Valerie Issarny explained:
"The application does not record, store or share the actual
audio signals. Using the periodic measures of loudness, the
application computes sound exposure levels by hour, day and month
and allows users to relate noise exposure to their own health and
wellbeing."
If authorized by the user in the application's settings, the
application will share the computed sound exposure levels to
Ambiciti server. Ambiciti then uses measures from multiple users to
create maps of noise pollution. No personal data is collected and
Ambiciti is not capable to identify user's identity.
About Ambiciti
The Ambiciti application and service are outcomes from the EIT
Digital Digital Cities Action Line's Innovation Activities. EIT
Digital is the leading European open innovation organisation.
Ambiciti Innovation Activity is led by the French National
Institute for computer science and applied mathematics, Inria, with
the Finnish Forum Virium Helsinki and French Numerical Technologies
(NUMTECH) as the other partners. In Helsinki, Forum Virium Helsinki consults the
local data needed for pollution model computing, organises local
pilots and manages data standardisation.
Ambiciti's business model is a two-fold development model.
Public free collaborative use of the application provides free
services whose quality increases with the qualified data created
and shared by users. The Ambiciti startup manages professional and
specific uses or adaptations of the application. It sells pollution
maps at street resolution which may make use of the collected
measurements, but individual measurements are never for direct
commercial use.
Ambiciti service and application are owned by the Ambiciti
startup
About EIT Digital
EIT Digital is a leading European open innovation organisation
that brings together a partnership of over 130 top European
corporations, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research
institutes. EIT Digital invests in strategic areas to accelerate
market uptake of research-based digital technologies and to bring
entrepreneurial talent and leadership to Europe.
EIT Digital is a Knowledge and Innovation Community of
the European Institute of Innovation and
Technology (EIT). EIT Digital headquarters are in Brussels with co-location centres in
Berlin, Budapest, Eindhoven, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, Trento and a hub in Silicon
Valley.
Communications lead, Digital Infrastructure -
jyrki.karasvirta@eitdigital.eu
About Forum Virium
Forum Virium Helsinki is an innovation unit within the Helsinki
City Group. It develops new digital services and urban innovation
in cooperation with companies, the City
of Helsinki (the Capital of Finland) and Helsinki residents.
About Inria
Inria, the French National Institute for computer science and
applied mathematics, promotes "scientific excellence for technology
transfer and society". Graduates from the world's top universities,
Inria's 2,700 employees rise to the challenges of digital
sciences.
For more information visit: http://www.eitdigital.eu
Follow us on Twitter: @EIT_DIgital
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EITDigital/
Communications lead, Digital Cities -
alvaro.delacruz@eitdigital.eu
Media Contact:
Dr Edna Ayme-Yahil
Head of Communications
23 Avenue d'Italie, 75013
Paris, France
+33-6-44-09-19-28
edna.ayme@eitdigital.eu
www.eitdigital.eu