MEASUREMENTS SUMMER SEMESTER 2019
From 01.06.2019 the diesel driving ban in Darmstadt will come into force.
It is the first ban of this kind in Hesse.
“For the first time, it will apply in any case until the end of the year,” said city spokesman Daniel Klose about the driving ban. The German Environmental Aid (DUH) and the black-green state government had agreed to close a 640-meter section of the busy hill road and 330 meters of Heinrichstraße for diesel vehicles up to Euronorm 5 and for gasoline vehicles up to Euronorm 2.
On two streets (Heinrichstraße and Hügelstraße) lanes were reduced.
For reasons of data protection, only in the event of a speeding violation may the number plate be used to check whether the vehicle is an old diesel. Since less traffic can pass through fewer lanes, a smaller amount of pollutants should also be released into the air.
The closures should be as short as possible. “This is not a measure that Darmstadt has thought up, and from the city’s point of view it is not the appropriate measure,” said Klose. Towards the end of the year, he said, new measurement data would be collected and then it would be possible to see how nitrogen oxide pollution had developed.
In Darmstadt in 2018, annual mean values of just under 50 micrograms per cubic meter of nitrogen dioxide had been measured at measuring points on Hügelstraße and around 54 micrograms per cubic meter on Heinrichstraße. The values were higher in previous years. The EU limit value is an annual average of 40 micrograms per cubic meter.
In the course of the traffic measurements planned for the city of Darmstadt together with the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, VITRONIC Bildverarbeitungssysteme GmbH will carry out measurements with PoliScan systems at several locations in Darmstadt. The measurements will be carried out from an enforcement trailer (trailer parked at the edge of the road) as well as from some stationary traffic monitoring systems (PoliScan system columns owned by the city of Darmstadt).
For the collection of traffic data, the PoliScan systems detect passing vehicles based on laser measurement technology and determine individual measurement parameters.
Exclusively to determine the vehicle’s district, the front of the vehicle is captured with the help of a digital camera and a non-visible infrared flash. A photo, on which the vehicle license plate but not the occupants in the vehicle interior are recognizable, is temporarily stored in the volatile main memory of the measuring device for evaluation, so that the characteristics “district, country and, if applicable, “syntax” can be determined by automatic license plate reading and anonymization.
Only these characteristics are recorded; the temporarily cached image is overwritten during the next measurement process.
Images are not recorded.
During the measurements, the devices are protected against unauthorized access by third parties, both by cryptographic access protection (hard authentication) and physically by the sealed enclosures.
Should a vandalism protection housing be broken open and the device stolen, temporary data is irrevocably lost when the power supply is disconnected.
In regular recording operation, the systems provide evaluation files without personal information.
For each vehicle, the files contain the time stamp of the passage, a vehicle or object ID, the vehicle type (car, truck), the lane travelled in, the speed and the direction of travel.
In addition, the following environmental data is recorded via sensors on the ENFORCEMENT TRAILER.
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitrogen monoxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM2.5), fine dust (PM10), wind speed and direction, precipitation, air pressure, temperature, relative. humidity.
This semester our measuring station is located in the Heinrichstraße /corner Wilhelm-Glässing-Straße. Due to the driving restrictions as of June 1st, the site is perfectly suited to detect possible differences in the measurement data before and after the ban.
In addition, we also measure with a permanently installed column on which a sensor is mounted. This is located at the corner of Heinrichstraße and Inselstraße
Air quality in relation to humidity
The higher the humidity, the lower the fine dust, NO, NO2 and CO.
Nitrogen monoxide as a function of wind speed (March, hill road)
The higher the wind speed, the lower the air pollutants.
Heinrichstraße/Wilhelm-Glässing-Str. (location of the trailer)
Decrease in the number of vehicles (Karlstraße in the direction of Heidelberger Straße) after the driving restriction.
Heinrichstraße/Eugen-Kogon-Str. (Breslauer Platz)
Decrease in the number of vehicles after the driving restriction
Hanauer Straße/Landgraf-Georg-Straße (east station)
Increase in the number of vehicles after the driving restriction (possibly bypass)
Rheinstraße/Berliner Allee (main station)
Increase in traffic density after driving restrictions.
Will the traffic flow change after the driving restriction? → Changes exist, possible by-passing or disregarding the restriction.
Is there a correlation between weather data and air quality? → Rise in humidity or wind speed affects the air quality.
Is there a correlation between traffic density and air quality? → Only a rough correlation can be determined by the linear representation simplified here.
On the basis of the evaluated measured values, we arrived at the following results, which are aimed at both the city and the project group in the next semester:
- Creating incentives for the use of public transport
- Include measured values of a column (at a selected point) to get more accurate results about the traffic density
- Compare measurements of air quality outside the traffic area (HLNUG measuring station at Woog) with that in the city centre (HLNUG measuring station Hügelstraße)
- Re-examination and analysis to conclude on the long-term effect of the driving restriction
- Identify bypasses of Heinrichstraße
Measurrements Summer Semester 2018
In the course of the traffic measurements planned for the city of Darmstadt together with the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, VITRONIC Bildverarbeitungssysteme GmbH will carry out measurements with PoliScan systems at several locations in Darmstadt. The measurements will be carried out from an enforcement trailer (trailer parked at the edge of the road) as well as from some stationary traffic monitoring systems (PoliScan system columns owned by the city of Darmstadt).
For the collection of traffic data, the PoliScan systems detect passing vehicles based on laser measurement technology and determine individual measurement parameters.
Exclusively to determine the vehicle’s district, the front of the vehicle is captured with the help of a digital camera and a non-visible infrared flash. A photo, on which the vehicle license plate but not the occupants in the vehicle interior are recognizable, is temporarily stored in the volatile main memory of the measuring device for evaluation, so that the characteristics “district, country and, if applicable, “syntax” can be determined by automatic license plate reading and anonymization.
Only these characteristics are recorded; the temporarily cached image is overwritten during the next measurement process.
Images are not recorded.
During the measurements, the devices are protected against unauthorized access by third parties, both by cryptographic access protection (hard authentication) and physically by the sealed enclosures.
Should a vandalism protection housing be broken open and the device stolen, temporary data is irrevocably lost when the power supply is disconnected.
In regular recording operation, the systems provide evaluation files without personal information.
For each vehicle, the files contain the time stamp of the passage, a vehicle or object ID, the vehicle type (car, truck), the lane travelled in, the speed and the direction of travel.
According to the Federal Environment Agency, CO2 emissions from transport in Germany have been rising again since 2012 (see Figure 1). At the same time, traffic is also responsible for the largest share of nitrogen oxide emissions in Germany.
Nitrogen oxides originate primarily from diesel engines. They cause irritation of the respiratory tract and increase heart complaints. Therefore, there are Europe-wide regulations or limits of 200 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) per cubic meter of air per hour. This value should not be exceeded more than 18 times per year. In addition, there is a limit of 40 micrograms per cubic metre of air on an annual average. [1] The following extract from the statistics of the Federal Environment Agency shows the places throughout Germany with the highest nitrogen dioxide pollution.
[1] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/luft/luftschadstoffe/stickstoffoxide
This shows that the limit value within the hill road in Darmstadt is clearly exceeded (see Figure 2). This is the decisive point, which is why our team of students, together with the company VITRONIC Dr. – Ing. Stein Bildverarbeitungssysteme GmbH Wiesbaden, will analyse the correlation of speed, throughput and environmental pollution on the most frequented roads in Darmstadt during the months of April, May and June.
The aim of the elaboration is to create a possibility and vision in the direction of optimizing the traffic flow in Darmstadt and thus provide the city of Darmstadt with analyzed data as well as possible suggestions for improvement to reduce the environmental pollution.
Locations
In order to analyse the suitable measuring points, the most critical traffic points were first identified with the help of Google Maps, [ui!] TRAFFIC and the Clean Air Plan for the Rhine-Main conurbation (Darmstadt subplan). Through these sources, we were able to determine that entry roads into the city and through roads are particularly affected by high traffic volumes. Through the cooperation with the company VITRONIC, we can access data from permanently installed speed cameras after a data protection check.
In order to determine suitable parking spaces for the mobile trailer, the critical traffic points at which there are no permanently installed speed measurement systems were inspected on foot. It must be ensured that the trailer is parallel to the road and that the optical measuring device is aligned against the direction of travel of the traffic to be measured. In addition, the traffic entering in the morning – especially during the week – should be recorded, as the traffic density at this time of day is higher than at other times of day.
Locations for the permanently installed speed cameras:
- Karlsruher Straße B3
- Heinrichstraße / Inselstraße
- Kasinostraße / Pallaswiesenstraße
- Rheinstraße / Am Kavalliersand
Locations for the mobile trailer:
- East station / B26
- Spessartring (Washingtonplatz)
- Hügelstraße / Wilhelm-Glässing-Straße
- Heinrichstraße Höhe Haus Nr.62
Since the evaluation is still in progress, we have provided a sample table with dummy values here for illustration purposes. This shows that no personal data is collected and the complete measurement is automated and anonymous.
Speed violations at the respective measuring point are not recorded and therefore not punished.
The following data are collected for air pollution measurement:
- Nitrogen dioxide (NO2)
- Nitric oxide (NO)
- Carbon monoxide (CO)
- Ozone (O3)
The following data is collected for particle measurement:
- Fine dust (PM2.5)
- Fine dust (PM10)
The temperature, relative humidity and air pressure are also recorded.