BACKROUND
Public transportation, in particular transit buses, play an important role in building and maintaining sustainable and equitable communities. According to ACEA, it is estimated that over 690,000 buses are in circulation in EU’s roads today, responsible for 8.5% of passenger transport on land.
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness of the general indoor air quality topic,
including not only aspects related to pathogens like the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but also aspects
related to other contaminants (dust, allergens, volatile organic compounds, etc.). This is no different for public transit environments.
Bus cabins constitute dynamic and complex indoor environments since they are often densely occupied environments with airflow idiosyncrasies and space constraints. Therefore, specific considerations need to be made when it comes to how HVAC systems and air cleaning technologies are applied in these environments.
Numerous air cleaning products are available in the market, spanning a wide range of technologies, properties, and range of performance. Typically, each vendor reports its own performance results, usually derived from tests conducted under specific assumptions and conditions. Furthermore, there are multiple performance criteria, and different products may exhibit different relative performance with respect to different criteria, leading to trade-offs.
The inability to visualize the effects of air cleaning technologies further complicates the task
of performing individual or comparative evaluations. that allow bus operators to know whether air cleaning tech one know if a technology inactivates that pathogen and, if so, how
fast? How does one know which of two technologies will be more effective under a
particular set of conditions?
AIMS AND SCOPE
The aim of this workshop is to propose a taxonomy and discuss practical evaluation criteria for air cleaning technologies applied to transit bus environments. A brief technology landscape will be presented, along with a comparative analysis which was conducted based on representative product testing at a third-party laboratory. Finally, questions and considerations for future research and development will be discussed.
PRESENTATIONS
Air cleaning technologies for transit bus environments: taxonomy and considerations
Petra Šťávová Trane Technologies
Dominique Silva Trane Technologies
