Particulate Matter Profiles along the Rack Railway Route Using Low-Cost Sensor

Air pollution due to Particulate Matter (PM) is an increasing concern of global extent. It has been the focus of many research projects worldwide and the latest low-cost technology is offering an ease and cheap way to monitor PM concentration. In this research, a low-cost PM monitoring platform was built with the objectives of evaluating its feasibility and its performance in mobile measurements, as well as characterizing the concentration profiles of PM along the measurement route. The rack railway in Stuttgart was utilized as means of transportation for this low-cost monitoring system with which the temporal and spatial distribution of the PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 concentration along the route was attained. The measurements were conducted for around two months from mid of January until mid of March 2019, during the operation hours of the rack railway. The results showed that the PM concentrations were dominated by fine particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM1) along the route of the rack railway. Higher PM concentrations were measured near the federal highway and high traffic area as compared to the residential area. An overestimation of PM concentration using low-cost sensor platform was observed during high relative humidity conditions as compared to the professional aerosol spectrometers.

Automated summary

A low-cost PM monitoring platform was established in this study, which was utilized on the rack railway in Stuttgart to measure the dominance of fine particulate matter along the route. Higher PM concentrations were found near high traffic areas and federal highways compared to residential areas. An overestimation of PM concentration was observed during high humidity conditions when using the low-cost sensor platform compared to professional aerosol spectrometers.