Air quality reports enhanced.

‘Airly Fact Sheets’ are an additional feature for the online Airly Platform. “This new facility utilizes automation and AI to dramatically enhance and speed up the creation of air quality reports,” explains Airly’s Marta Steiner.

“Many of our customers need to engage with local organisations such as schools and hospitals in matters relating to air quality. To achieve this, they were previously painstakingly creating leaflets and newsletters featuring data from Airly sensors. However, this was a slow, laborious process, so we developed ‘Airly Fact Sheets’ so that they could create professional, informative leaflets that provided information and insights that members of the public could easily understand.”

The size, accuracy and cost of Airly’s air quality sensors has enabled local government, schools and health authorities to monitor air quality continuously in many more locations than would have been possible in the past. As a consequence, an enormous amount of data is being produced, so the Airly Fact Sheets function was created to ensure that these organisations can extract maximum value from the data that they are generating.

How does it work?
For a small extra cost, users can add the Fact Sheets facility to their Dashboard on the Airly Platform. This allows them to create bespoke templates using logos, images and whatever air quality or health related information they wish to display.

Users simply select the air quality index or parameters that they wish to display, and the timescale required, and a bespoke document will be automatically created, with AI generated insights based on the data. So, for example, if NO₂ levels are high during the selected period, the report could explain the likely sources and the potential health impacts. Every brochure can be exported as a pdf for printing or digital circulation.

How do Fact Sheets help?
Early users of the facility have found the Fact Sheets useful in a variety of ways. For example, they have helped improve understanding of air quality issues within local communities, within schools, and within different departments in councils and other public bodies. They have also helped engage with parents on the impacts of vehicles outside schools, and with local residents when implementing air quality mitigation, or when considering planning and development proposals.

Summarising, Marta says: “Continuous air quality monitoring data presents a fantastic opportunity to better understand the sources of pollution and the health impacts that they incur. However, the opportunities for improvement will be significantly lower if the data is not presented in an easy-to-understand format. The new AI-powered Fact Sheets facility will therefore help to ensure that local authorities, schools and health authorities are able to quickly and easily generate valuable air quality insights.”

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Mobile air quality monitor.

‘Airly Orbital’ is a compact, low-power device with built-in GPS and cellular communications to allow mobile air quality monitoring. 

“Traditional air quality monitors are fixed in one location,” explained Airly CEO Wiktor Warchalowski at the launch in early October at AQE, the Air Quality and Emissions show.. “But air quality does not just change all the time; it also changes spatially, so we developed Airly Orbital to provide air quality practitioners with the ability to effectively hunt for air pollution.”

Mobile air quality measurements will help identify pollution hot-spots and optimise the location of fixed monitors. Networks of Airly Orbital sensors will help refine the ongoing positioning of stationary sensors and improve the rapid detection of air quality incidents such as fires and other hazardous events.

The Airly Orbital has been designed for deployment on cars, trams, or buses to measure traffic pollution. It helps optimise traffic flow and assess the impact of mitigation measures such as real-time traffic control, traffic calming, pedestrianisation, and clean air, congestion, and low emission zones.

Airly Orbital employs the same well-proven and high-performing technologies as Airly’s established air quality sensors, measuring NO2, Ozone and PM 1, 2.5 and 10, as well as temperature, humidity and pressure. However, with rapid mobile communications and a highly accurate GPS, Airly Orbital is able to undertake continuous mobile air quality measurements so that users can develop a better understanding of air quality in a town or city.

Designed for continuous operation, running on 9-24V DC, with a maximum power consumption of 2 W, Airly Orbital can run from a cigarette lighter socket or a small solar panel.

These Airly Orbital devices will be available for shipping from 2nd December 2024.

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AI and air quality.

The Seminar programme at this year’s Air Quality & Emissions show (AQE 2024 19-10 October 2025 Birmingham GB*) will feature a presentation on the use of AI in air quality by Airly co-founder and CEO Wiktor Warchałowski. The seminar, free to attend, will begin at 10:30am on the second day.

Wiktor Warchałowski.

This seminar will be essential viewing for air quality professionals looking to better understand the role of automation and AI in their daily work. Wiktor will explain how a new AI tool can be exploited to dramatically improve the speed and efficiency of the initial, more mundane elements of air quality report generation. In doing so, Wiktor will demonstrate the ways in which AI and automation can be used to enable air quality experts to make better use of their skills and expertise.

The seminar will feature a real-life case study, as well as best practice for implementing AI technology, drawn from industry research, interviews with over 300 air quality consultants, and feedback from organisations that are already utilising AI and automation in air quality.

AQE visitors will be able to participate in a practical demonstration of the Airly AI tool at the company’s exhibition booth – M15. The company’s air quality sensors will also feature on the booth, as well as screens providing access to air quality data from networks of Airly sensors in the UK and overseas.

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* Registration at  is free of charge, and provides access to the AQE Seminars, Conferences and an International Exhibition. Registered attendees are also able to access the co-located WWEM 2024 event, which focuses on testing and monitoring in the water and wastewater sectors.

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Silver lining to air quality aid withdrawal.

Following the disappointing news that the British Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has withdrawn funding for the latest round of Local Air Quality Grants, the air quality instrumentation company Airly has announced two cost-free offers that it hopes will allow councils to make progress on their air quality monitoring programs.

This year several local authorities there had been informed that their air quality project applications were successful, but they recently learned that this year’s funding, around £6 million (ca €7m), has been withdrawn. From air quality monitoring outside of schools, to retro-fitting old buses, these projects have increased air quality awareness and lowered pollution levels, improving and extending the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around Britain since 1997.

“These Defra funds provide a much-needed opportunity to address a specific air quality issue, underpinned by continuous monitoring data,” Airly’s Dimal Luta explains. “As such these projects enable local authorities to exploit the latest developments in MCERTS approved cost-effective monitoring technologies. We very much hope, therefore, that the withdrawal of these funds will be temporary, because for many councils, they provide essential funds for a critically important issue.”

Both of Airly’s offers to local authorities are cost-free and apply for 12 months. “Firstly, we have 20 instruments measuring PM2.5, PM10 (MCERTS certified) and NO2 - available to any of those councils affected by this year’s decision,” Dimal says.

“Secondly, we are offering every single authority in the UK one of our certified sensors (measuring PM 1, PM 2.5, and PM 10) for 12 months to use on any project, so that they can collect as much real-time, hyper-local data as possible to help mitigate and fight pollution over the next year,” he adds.

Air quality monitoring performs a vital role in helping local authorities to: identify pollution hotspots; identify pollution sources; design improvement measures; inform sustainable development; measure the success of mitigation, and inform the public. For example, Airly currently has operational air quality monitoring networks with local authorities such as Lambeth, Southampton, Birmingham, Northampton, Bedford etc.

“30 local authorities have already reserved sensors and over 50 others have expressed an interest in doing so. The offers are available on a first-come/ first-served basis, and interested councils should email me (d.luta@airly.org) as soon as possible,” suggests Dimal Luta.

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AI and air quality success!

A new web-based AI tool, designed to help create air quality assessments, is receiving rave reviews from initial users. Over 20 air quality consultancies are currently beta testing the Airly AI tool*, which has been developed to accelerate air quality assessments for planning and development proposals.

Following two weeks of evaluation, during which the tool was used extensively over 100 times, and Airly Product Lead Marta Steiner said: “The feedback has been very positive, 80% of all testing users reported very significant time saving, with data collection taking seconds - instead of hours or days! and 70% of the Airly AI users said that the product exceeded their expectations.”

Developers and planning authorities utilise air quality assessments to model the air quality impacts of proposed developments, and with around 30,000 people dying prematurely from air pollution in Britain every year, these reports perform a critical role in sustainable development.

The Airly AI tool automates the gathering of information that would previously have been painstakingly obtained from multiple online sources of local geographic, environmental and transport data. For example, the Annual Status Reports, which include monitoring data, from 99% of Councils have been digitised by Airly AI, and 92% are now automatically available in the tool.

Certain features of the new tool have been found to be particularly beneficial. For example, the majority of users indicated that editable tables with diffusion tube and monitoring site data bring the greatest value to their work, and most commented that the quality of AI generated content is equal to their own. Similarly, the automatic drawing of road links on the GIS map has been extremely popular; typically reducing the time taken for this task by around 70%.

The beta testing will end shortly, but Marta says: “This evaluation period has provided a great opportunity for air quality professionals to understand how Airly AI can help them. The users are using the Airly AI tool extensively in their everyday work, which clearly demonstrates the willingness of air quality companies to adopt new technologies and embrace new opportunities for their businesses.

“Feedback from these early users is being used to further enhance the tool’s capability because we are determined that it should be developed to meet their precise needs,” she adds. “The next milestone on the Airly AI road map is to enable air quality consultants to automate other types of air quality assessments.”

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* Anyone with an interest in air quality assessments can book a demonstration here . 

See also "Air quality assessments with AI!" (19/3/2024)

 @airlyorg @_Enviro_News #Environment #AI 

Air quality assessments with AI!

Airly has announced the launch of a new AI tool that has been developed to revolutionise the work of air quality consultants, and dramatically accelerate the production of air quality assessments in planning and development proposals.

“Working closely with air quality consultants, we have utilised the power of AI to dispense with the requirement to manually search for local geographic, environmental and transport data and to then generate reports,” explains Airly Product Lead Marta Steiner. “These are time-consuming, repetitive, and frankly boring tasks, so it makes a lot of sense to automate them and free up consultants for work that actually needs their expertise.”

The tool has been developed in strict accordance with the guidance provided by Environmental Protection UK and the Institute of Air Quality Management (IAQM) in their document, "Land-Use Planning & Development Control: Planning for Air Quality", which has ensured that Airly AI follows all the relevant standards.

Airly CEO Wiktor Warchalowski says: “We believe that the impact of this new AI tool in air quality will be similar to that of CAD software in the engineering sector. With the benefit of Airly AI, air quality consultants will lower costs and save time. In addition, their work will become more interesting and enjoyable, allowing them to optimise the use of their skills and experience, whilst delivering faster outcomes from planning applications.”

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Winning fine particulate sensor!

Airly’s particulate sensor has been announced as winner of the AIRPARIF AIRLAB Microsensors Challenge 2023 for the measurement of fine particulates (PM2.5) outdoors. “I am incredibly proud that our team has been recognised as a global leader in outdoor PM2.5 measurements,” comments Airly CEO Wiktor Warchalowski. “The challenge included major instrumentation companies from around the world, and Airly was proclaimed winner because our sensor was able to deliver the most accurate PM2.5 measurements.

“This victory is more than just another trophy on our shelf - it's a testament to the dedication and hard work of our R&D team, combined with a deep commitment to our mission – for which a key component is the provision of accurate, reliable, understandable air quality data.

“I would also like to pay special tribute to my co-founder, Michał Misiek for leading our R&D program from day one. His tenacity, vision and leadership have been pivotal in our journey to this remarkable achievement.”

Airly’s Microsensors Challenge success follows the recent award of MCERTS certification, which provides further third-party verification of Airly’s performance in the measurement of both PM2.5 and PM10.

Launched in 2016 by Airparif and its partners, AIRLAB brings together a community that is committed to the improvement of air quality. In 2023 the AIRLAB Microsensors Challenge involved an evaluation of the performance of microsensors for measuring air pollution simultaneously in both France and Thailand, from March to June.

Summarising, Warchalowski says: “34 sensors were evaluated for measuring outdoor air in two very different environments. Leading global manufacturers competed, and the results were evaluated by a jury of independent international experts, so we are deeply honoured to win, and we are hugely grateful to Airparif for allowing us to participate.”

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Air quality monitors certified.

An MCERTS certificate has been awarded for the ‘Airly Air Quality Sensor PM+Gas’ systems. This means that the Airly particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) sensors have been independently verified for qualitative and quantitative measurements, and comply with the British Environment Agency’s MCERTS Performance Standards for Indicative Ambient Particulate Monitors.

Explaining the value of MCERTS accreditation, Airly CEO Wiktor Warchalowski says: “Air quality data is used to inform extremely important decisions, so it is vitally important that measurements are accurate and reliable. Third-party verification through schemes such as MCERTS, therefore allows local authorities, consultants and researchers to choose technology with independently proven levels of performance.

“We already have thousands of sensors operating in the field, but the award of this MCERTS certificate is particularly important because it adds a further layer of credibility to Airly’s products and services.”

In order to achieve the MCERT requirements, Airly’s sensors were tested in a laboratory and in the field. Assessors also visited Airly’s manufacturing facility to verify the robustness of the company’s quality management systems.

The field tests were conducted over a 3-month period with two candidate Airly PM+Gas sensor systems, collocated with a reference PM monitor in Birmingham.

Additional testing was undertaken using two Airly Air Quality PM sensor systems and two Airly Air Quality PM+Gas sensor systems. The two variants were found to agree well, with R2 = 0.998 and slopes close to 1 for both PM2.5 and PM10. The test data report was submitted by Bureau Veritas to CSA Group, the MCERTS certification body.

Commenting on the results of the tests, Warchalowski says: “Our sensors have been tested extensively before, but these evaluations, coupled with the MCERTS award, provide Airly customers with the confidence that they are using one of the best performing small sensors in the world.

“It was interesting to note, for example, that the results from the Airly sensors in the Birmingham (GB) evaluation did not require any correction factors. Airly customers will also be pleased to learn that the MCERTS certificate applies to both PM2.5 and PM10 over an extremely wide range, 0-1,000 µg/m3. This is important, because it means that the sensors can be used at low levels for assessment against hourly, daily and yearly limit values, as well as for monitoring dust levels near development projects, waste management facilities, materials handling sites, industrial processes etc.

“The world is beginning to recognise the enormous air quality opportunity presented by small sensors, and new players are entering the market with increasing frequency, we therefore urge customers to include MCERTS in their specifications to ensure they achieve the levels of performance that companies like Airly are able to deliver.”

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Recognising the danger of air pollution.

Clean Air Day 2023 will take place on Thursday 15th June in Britain as a reminder that air pollution causes up to 36,000 deaths every year.

“At Airly, we strongly support the aims of Clean Air Day and urge everyone to participate,” explains Airly COO Jonathan Gartside. “The UK Government recognises that air pollution is the largest environmental health risk that we face today, but there is still a long way to go, so we hope that recent advances in monitoring technology will be exploited to accelerate improvements in air quality.”

Organised by Global Action Plan, the Clean Air Day website provides resources for individuals, communities, schools, businesses, local authorities and healthcare professionals.

This year, Clean Air Day takes place just three weeks after the Westminster Government’s Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) consultation, which examined key issues surrounding air quality strategy in England. “We were very pleased to respond to the consultation,” explains Airly CEO Wiktor Warchalowski. “Our submissions addressed a number of key issues such as the paucity of local authority dense monitoring networks to identify air quality hotspots and trends when designing and validating interventions.

“We believe that the Government should mandate local real-time monitoring in AQMAs and near sensitive locations like schools. At the same time, it will be necessary to increase funding specifically for local monitoring, and to enhance best-practice guidance for the use of small sensor networks to give confidence to Local Authorities to make use of this emerging technology.

“We wholeheartedly applaud the recent success of the EAC in the improvement of river water quality through the establishment of a comprehensive nationwide real-time monitoring network. However, the health impacts of air pollution are far, far greater, so we very much hope that the committee will be able to convince the Government that it should mandate and fund local real-time monitoring.”

@airlyorg @cleanairdayuk #Environment #Britain