The largest Czech start-up focusing on the complete digitization of agriculture, Agdata, will significantly expand its scope. From Czech farms, he will also now head to cities to which he wants to offer a completely new ecosystem of services under the Agdata City brand over time. In the first phase, it will offer, for example, meteostanices and sensors for measuring air quality, the data of which will be able to connect with other systems of the municipality using the API. In the future, however, it envisages a comprehensive data transformation of municipalities – from monitoring the state of urban greenery, monitoring of the temperature of public spaces to monitoring of municipal service cars.
The pilot point where the Agdata City air quality control system is being tested is the municipality of Petrovice near Karviná. It is located in one of the regions of the most polluted air in the Czech Republic. Other pilot locations include the Brno city districts of Popůvky and Královo Pole. In the participating municipalities, it will be possible to install breathalysers and dust sensors that are able to monitor dust in the PM1, PM2, PM2,5 and PM10 bands, while monitoring molecules NO2, SO2, CO, O3, CO2 and O2. Local government officials can set limit values, which they will inform about in the future by SMS or email in case the specified boundaries are crossed or fall below the minimum value. The current results with live data are then placed publicly on the local government website, where every citizen has access.
"We realize that air quality is one of the problems that plagues the Czech Republic. Information on air quality can be absolutely crucial for residents in the locality. That's why we were the first of the Agdata City ecosystem products to focus on precise mapping of local air pollution. In addition to the usual quantities such as wind direction and speed, rainfall total, temperature, humidity or pressure, the advanced sensory we offer can monitor the concentration of dust particles and a wide range of pollutants," says Lukáš Musil, Agdata's Sales Director.
"By participating in the pilot project, we are able to offer citizens online information about air quality in our village. It is not the best here in the long term. Sensors are located in three parts of the village where our school and preschool facilities are located. This will allow these institutions to obtain important information about the current air condition so that they can safely carry out their outdoor activities with children. From the point of view of the municipality, the low operating costs of the system are also very important, which are significantly more advantageous than similar systems on the market," says Marian Lebiedzik, Mayor of Petrovice near Karviná.
Dust particle pollution is currently one of the main air quality problems in the Czech Republic. Particles pose a significant risk to human health. They come mainly from combustion processes in energy, heating households and transport. In addition to direct exhalations, it also causes already settled particles to swirl into the air. And it's not just about the regions. As part of the Clear Air For Europe project, the Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency compared air purity in about 30 major European cities and assessed it as the worst situation in Prague in terms of air pollution.
Agdata City, however, will not end up with meteostanics and air quality control. A number of sensors, which today work successfully on thousands of farms, can also be used in urban environments. This is also stated by the mayor of the Brno part of Popůvka, Miluše Cervena: "Popůvky is a village located west of Brno about 10 km from Brno and is the only one in the Czech Republic divided by the body of the D1 motorway. We have built a school and kindergarten in close proximity to this highway, so we welcomed Agdata City's offer to measure air quality in our village. We currently have three sensors in the village that will allow us to monitor the air condition. We can communicate operationally with the school and kindergarten management when it is not advisable to ventilate or stay outside."
In the future, Agdata City will be used, for example, to control and care for urban greenery in the form of a smart park or forest park, and advanced telematics can ensure the efficiency of urban services and fuel consumption. It is not without interest that the whole system can be deployed with slight modifications even for monitoring, for example, public transport cars.
"Of course, the changing climate also affects cities and municipalities, care for urban greenery is complicated and expensive, and interventions in the form of inappropriately timed suction are often rather destructive. Our farm know-how is ideal for a wide range of urban service activities, to which we are able to deliver basically a turnkey system for efficient management of the urban environment," says Musil. "And because we have one of the most prestigious telematics on the market with a resolution of several tens of centimeters, its application is offered in a number of other industries. In the future, we do not oppose becoming, for example, one of the suppliers of data on the movement of urban transport vehicles, including, for example, public transport within Agdata City."
