Houston, TX (Feb 20, 2008) — Yellow Cab is making a unique contribution to air quality control research. The company’s 300-foot tall communications tower is the site for several sensitive instruments that measure surface winds and concentrations of air pollutants. The instruments are used in a study led by Dr. Gunnar Schade, Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences. The research will be applied to air quality questions important to Houston and the State of Texas.
“In order to obtain accurate measurements, we needed to mount the instruments on a structure that does not influence the wind itself. A free standing tower, with its small footprint and lattice structure, is just that,” explained Dr. Schade. But the search for a tower whose owner was willing to host the instruments at no cost was futile until Dr. Schade approached Yellow Cab. Besides meteorological data, long Teflon tubes on the tower sample the air, which is then analyzed with instruments housed in a building at the bottom of the tower on the Yellow Cab property. “The donation of the space is an essential ingredient to our success. We cannot afford to pay rent on a commercial tower,” Dr. Schade said. The location of the facilities and tower, only 2.5 miles north of downtown, is near ideal for measuring air emissions from traffic and from diverse areas of Houston including residential, commercial and recreational areas.
“Yellow Cab is recognized as an industry leader in the innovative use of technology,” said Robert Rugg, president of Yellow Cab. “This project is especially exciting because we are in a unique position to allow our technology and infrastructure to benefit scientific research and the City of Houston in a meaningful way.”
The study’s main goals are to measure turbulent air mass exchange and energy and trace gas fluxes (i.e. emission amounts in most cases) from the urban surface in this region. “We are providing crucial input data for people who model air pollution in Texas,” said Dr. Schade. “Our measurements can provide an independent validation of the state’s pollutant emissions’ inventory and thereby contributes to efforts bringing Houston into compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.”
Weather and air quality conditions measured at the tower can be viewed on a webpage, which is updated every 20 minutes. To view the page, visit www.YellowCabHouston.com and click on the “Houston Weather and Air Quality” link or on the photo of the tower, located on the home page in the lower left corner.
The study is conducted with partial funding from the Texas Air Research Center at Lamar University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Two graduate students and several undergraduate students work on projects connected to the measurements taken on the tower.
About Yellow Cab
Yellow Cab is Houston’s only computer dispatched taxi fleet. With more than 1,200 independent contractor-operated cabs in the Houston area, Yellow Cab’s taxi service is available 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. All cabs are equipped with digital cameras as well as Global Positioning Systems. For more information, visit www.yellowcabhouston.com.
