London taxi receipts promote air quality apps

Licensed Taxi Drivers Association distributes 20,000 books of taxi receipts advertising three free air quality phone apps

The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) has distributed 20,000 books of taxi receipts promoting free phone apps aimed at increasing awareness of air quality.

The Association agreed last year to support Clean Air in London’s campaign to build public understanding of air pollution, and CAL this week (January 16) revealed that thousands of the customer taxi receipts are now being used as part of the agreement carrying the CAL logo.

Around 20,000 books of taxi reciepts are being distributed promoting free air quality phone apps

Three free air quality apps for mobile devices — which have been developed by CAL, the City of London Corporation and King’s College London — are advertised on the receipts.

The CityAir app developed by the City of London Corporation assists users in choosing the best route to travel in the capital in order to avoid the highest levels of air pollution, while King’s College London’s London Air app provides pollution alerts from its roadside monitoring network.

CAL’s Clean Air in Cities app, meanwhile, reports the health impact of long-term exposure to particulate matter PM2.5 for the population in local areas, regions and England as a whole. It also estimates the number of deaths attributable to air pollution on a calendar year basis.

All three apps are shown on the taxi receipts, and as part of the campaign agreement, CAL founder and director Simon Birkett will also write two articles each year for LTDA’s official publication ‘Taxi’.

Example of the taxi receipts being used by LTDA drivers showing support for air quality phone apps (click to enlarge)

According to CAL, both organisations share a number of common aims, including: introducing more taxi ranks in the capital; more choice for taxi drivers in the vehicles they can buy; real-world testing of vehicle emissions; financial mechanisms to support drivers purchasing new greener taxis, and; smog warnings.

LTDA claims to be the largest representative group of tax drivers in London, with 10,000 members. There are around 24,000 taxi drivers in London.