Ultrafine Particle Dataset from Zurich Mobile Sensor Network, 2012-2013

Approximately 11 million samples of ultrafine particle concentration measurements were collected over one year from April 2012 to April 2013. The dataset was created by researchers at ETH Zurich using sensors mounted on 10 streetcars in Zurich, Switzerland. It includes particle number, average diameter, and lung deposited surface area measurements alongside GPS coordinates.

Use Cases

• Modeling urban air pollution at high spatio-temporal resolution based on mobile sensor data.
• Analyzing the correlation between public transit routes and particle concentration levels based on tram-mounted sensor data.
• Estimating population exposure to lung-deposited surface area (LDSA) based on geospatial and particle size data.
• Developing health-optimal routing algorithms based on real-time pollution maps derived from the sensor network.

Strengths

• Approximately 11 million samples provide a substantial temporal density for analysis.
• Data has been post-processed with periodic null-offset calibration and malfunction filtering.
• Spatial coverage is provided by GPS coordinates from sensors mounted on 10 streetcars across Zurich.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

ETH Zurich

Collection Method

Collected by a mobile sensor network with MiniDiSC particle sensors and u-blox GPS receivers mounted on streetcars.

Time Range

April 2012 to April 2013

Geography

City of Zurich, Switzerland