Taxis Track Jinan Pollution

original source:

The eastern Chinese city of Jinan has deployed a new army of air pollution monitors: taxis.

 Local authorities said they have installed air quality monitors on top of 100 taxis. The monitors are capable of measuring atmospheric particulate matter such as PM2.5 and PM10, generating data every three seconds and transmitting the location and measurements on a real-time basis.

The 100 taxis are estimated to travel over 23,000 kilometers a day and cover over 95 percent of the roads of Jinan, home to over 7 million people and capital of eastern Shandong province.-Xinhua

Some of the international media were kept oout of the proceedings.

Several international news organisations, including the BBC, Financial Times and The New York Times were denied access to the announcement, at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

The Foreign Correspondent's Club of China said in a statement it was "gross violation of the principles of press freedom".