Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) are collaborating with Chinese company Environmental Thinking and the cities of Shenzhen and Tianjin to turn taxis into a mobile sensing platform which enables cost-effective, widespread data collection.

They say as few as ten taxis could be effective, although more will improve accuracy, and applications for cities include monitoring traffic congestion, noise and air pollution.

Pei Zhang, Associate Research Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at CMU, said: “Placing sensors all over a city with high density would be expensive and difficult to maintain, but managed fleets like taxis are everywhere and go everywhere in a city.”
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