Not a week goes by without some sort of story that proposes a ban on some sort of vehicle as a way of tackling air quality issues. In addition to work on Clean Air Zones (CAZs), government committees have been having their say, recommending that the ban on selling new diesel and petrol cars needs to be brought forward to 2035, from its current date of 2040.

While the cities and legislators are pressing ahead with bans or CAZs, we want to pause and question if they are really the only tool for achieving improved air quality. Whilst always well-intentioned, the reality is that even where they work well, there will always be vehicles and emissions that require management in order to mitigate their impacts on local communities.

To be honest, we are not particularly strongly pro- or anti- the banning of certain vehicles. Our preferred approach is to work collaboratively with a number of partners across different sectors to achieve reductions in air quality. Our end goal is to improve air quality so, in some respects, we can supplement CAZs where they do exist, and provide an easily deployable solution for where they don’t. We feel that we have a good case study of how this can be achieved.

Read more: Intelligent air quality monitoring