Project BREATHE: DPD rolls out air quality monitoring across 6 UK cities

The UKs most sustainable delivery company DPD has announced the roll-out of a major new air quality monitoring programme across 6 of the biggest cities in the UK.

Project BREATHE is live in London already with 100 mobile air quality sensors on the roof of DPD vans and 20 fixed units on DPD PickUp shops close to schools and play areas.   By the end of May, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff will join the ground-breaking initiative, creating a network of over 400 sensors in total, delivering 1.5m pollution readings a day.

The sensors, which are the size of a broadband router, take readings every 12 seconds and are focused on the most critical health impactor, fine particles PM2.5 at breathing level, to provide real time data designed to help visualise the air quality issue and identify hotspots.

DPD has created a short film to illustrate how the project works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aKW8RfPQZM

M2.5 refers to dangerous particles of pollution that are less than 2.5 microns in diameter.  At 1/20th the width of a human hair, they lodge deep in lung tissue and are linked to many diseases including cancer and asthma.

The UK roll-out is part of a Europe wide DPD programme in partnership with expert air quality tracking provider Pollutrack, with a planned total of 2,400 sensors across 20 European cities by the end of 2021. 

Once the sensors are installed and monitored for 2 months, DPD will provide air quality information based on real measurements, street by street via the Pollutrack AirDiag system for local councils to help in their policy making.  The data will also be available to DPD customers and academics.

DPD is an industry leader in sustainable delivery and already has over 800 electric vehicles on the road in the UK.  In October 2020, DPD announced plans to deliver to 25 of the largest towns and cities in the UK with zero and low-emission delivery means by 2025.

Olly Craughan, DPD’s Head of CSR commented,

“BREATHE is a hugely significant project for us and complements our 2025 strategy to deliver via electric vehicles to 25 cities in the UK.  We will be measuring air pollution using our existing city centre fleet and facilities. Typically, air quality monitoring has just been based on fixed positions, whereas we are mobile and cover the whole of a city at different times.  We will be providing real-time, breathing level readings that could help improve air quality for millions of people.

“The initial Covid lockdowns really highlighted the issue of air quality, as people got used to quieter roads and cities. We hope that local authorities, other key stakeholders and academics can utilise this data to help inform further research and local decision making.  We are already working with the team behind the Birmingham Clean Air Zone and our data will play a key part in monitoring the real impact the zone makes, when it goes live on 1st June 2021.”

 

Notes to editors

The UK’s favourite parcel delivery group: DPD has been voted top in MoneySavingExpert’s consumer satisfaction poll for parcel delivery companies eight years running.  

In April 2015, DPD was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2015 in the Innovation category, for its unique one-hour delivery service, Predict. 

In 2018, DPD opened the UK’s first all-electric parcel delivery depot in Westminster. DPD currently has over 800 EVs on the road in the UK and in October 2020, announced plans to deliver to 25 of the largest towns and cities in the UK with zero and low-emission delivery means by 2025.  Details of all of DPD’s sustainability initiatives can be found on its dedicated green website: https://green.dpd.co.uk/

DPD is a member of DPD group, one of Europe's leading parcels groups, wholly owned by France's La Poste, the second largest postal group in Europe.

The company operates more than 10,000 vehicles from 84 locations and delivers over 300 million parcels a year.