Vehicle telematics company, CMS SupaTrak, has been shortlisted for a national award for its work on helping to tackle environmental air pollution.
CMS has been nominated for the Investors in People - Outstanding Use of Technology category.
The company was in charge of the development of a mobile air monitoring device that can be fitted on refuse trucks to enable councils to monitor, and better understand local air quality.
Jason Airey, MD of CMS SupaTrak, explained: ‘We work closely with Barry Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield, who chairs the UK Parliamentary Committee for Transport Safety (PACTS). Barry expressed his concern that whilst we were able to use technology to improve the safety of vehicles, nothing was being done to understand the damage that vehicles were causing to the environment with air pollution.
‘We realised that we had a perfect solution to provide monitoring. Due to their nature, RCVs visit nearly every location in the UK so would be an ideal way of collecting this vital data. Working in partnership with our colleagues and customers in the waste and environment industries we now have a device that fully-integrates with the vehicle's onboard telematics and maps the air pollution accurately. This means that councils can now have definitive proof of how they are meeting Government guidelines on air quality and the sight of where they are not.'
RCV manufacturer Dennis Eagle has now fitted the equipment to its demonstration vehicle and the City of London has been working closely with CMS to calibrate the monitors with its current static monitoring systems. Initial results have already enabled the council to fill the gaps where there were no static systems.
Jason added: ‘I am absolutely delighted that Investors in People have shortlisted us for this national Technology award. Shockingly, the World Health Organisation estimates that around a million UK citizens will die from air pollution-related diseases in the next 20 years if existing Government policies are followed. It's clear that stronger policies and more stringent monitoring of air quality are vital so I'm delighted that we've been able to lead the way in developing a solution for councils to gather that localised and accurate data they will need to bring about air quality improvements.'
This shortlisting comes after a period of substantial and positive internal change at CMS, which resulted in the company being awarded international standards ISO ISO9001 and ISO14001 after passing their audits without a single area of non-compliance.
