The City of Tshwane (CoT) currently maintains seven permanent air-monitoring stations: Bodibeng, Rosslyn, Booysens, Pretoria West, Olievenhoutbosch, Mamelodi and Ekandustria. All permanent stations are fully functional and reporting to South African Air Quality Information System (SAAQIS) hosted by the South African Weather Services (SAWS). CoT has recently procured one air quality mobile station.

The main purpose of the mobile station will be to determine highest concentrations occurring in the area covered by the network and to help officials to scientifically analyze the source of pollution. The station will be placed at different sites within the city, depending on changing needs and priorities.

The new Air Quality Mobile station

Ambient Air quality mobile station replaces the street boxes that have been discontinued due to a lack of data integrity as a result of faulty instruments caused by electrical spikes (lightning). The Mobile station will be instrumental in the generation of baseline data of each jurisdiction or specific site. It will also provide site-specific estimates of trends and tendencies of air quality/pollution.

The results of the data from the mobile station will provide a framework for future work and planning, and should assist the development of comprehensive national and local air quality management strategies and policy responses. The mobile station will also provide a data base for research evaluation of effects: urban, land-use, and transportation planning; development and evaluation of abatement strategies; and development and validation of diffusion models.

Parameters to be measured

In the mobile station, two analysers will measure and display the amount of Particulate matter (PM10 & PM2.5), Benzene, Toulene and Xylene levels. It will also measure meteorological parameters like wind speed, wind direction, temperature, relative humidity, precipitation and solar radiation.

The first location of the mobile station will be at Tshwane Fresh Produce market to measure/monitor specifically Dust/PM10 & PM2.5 and also other air quality parameters as a results of several complains on their products. This will be the first pilot siting of the station in response to complains and the collected data from the station will be sent to Laboratory to determine the source of pollution.