Citing Polluting Vehicles Using Roadside Sensors

Makarand writes "A regional southern Californian law will soon allow installation of roadside sensors to measure pollutants from tailpipes as vehicles accelerate. The sensors would then activate a camera to photograph the license plates of vehicles whose emissions are too high and the owner would be notified to bring his vehicle for a smog check. This would ensure that if a vehicle has developed a problem and become a polluter, the owner cannot wait till the next smog check date to fix the problem. The plan is to have these sensors in place by year 2010. As of now, the state depends on the mandatory vehicle smog checks and the Highway Patrol and travelers to report smoking vehicles."

Comments

Re: I am in shock and awed

[Yokaze]

To my limited knowledge, spectroscopy is the method of choice of measuring pollution in exhaust of plants.

AFAIK, a LASER directed on the chute and measuring the reflected spectrum deliver accurate data on various gases (CO,SO2...)

The external factors you have named maybe unpredictable, but are measurable and the systematical errors and statistical errors stemming from them can be measured and accounted for.

I may be wrong, I only remember it from something I've heard 5-10 years ago.
In that case, please enlighten me.

The report was something along this line:
Before such systems, govermental agencies checking the exhaust of plants had to build up an apparatus at the site (at the exhaust). The arrival of the agency at the site gave the operator the signal change the settings, so that they pass the inspection, which usually operated at a cheaper and less cleaner moed.
The (at that time) new system fitted into a van. They just had to drive some hundred meters near to the chute, with a line-of-sight, pointed the LASER at the exhaust and read the print-out, which listed the PPM of the pollutants.