The National Health Service and a leading university have launched an interactive website to help commuters plan their journeys to work and to avoid air pollution blackspots.

The site, www.breathelondon.org, was developed by academics from the Environmental Research Group at King's College, London.

The website maps air pollution levels in all the areas of London in real-time and allows users to check their travel routes to find out how polluted the air is, and if a change of route would reduce their pollution to exposure.

Even a change from walking or cycling along a main road to taking a back street would reduce exposure, said Dr. Ben Barratt, an academic in the environmental research group, who added that one of the benefits of using the website was to allow individuals to make their own choices about coping with air pollution.

The academics drew on international research into the dangers of air pollution, in particular of small particles of pollution (smaller than 2.5 micrometers) known as PM2.5 because of their size.

The sources of PM2.5 include fuel combustion from automobiles, power plants, wood burning, industrial processes, and diesel-powered vehicles such as buses and trucks. These fine particles are also formed in the atmosphere when gases such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds are transformed in the air by chemical reactions.

Residents of inner city areas can be affected by this kind of pollution.

Professor Frank Kelly, environmental health chair of King's College London and member of the environmental research group, said the website launch late on Wednesday evening was an attempt "to improve the understanding of individuals that there is a problem of air quality in urban areas in the 21st century and we need to improve awareness that it is leading to health problems."

Dr. Ian Mudway, also of the King's College London research group, said: "Premature mortality is associated with PM (particle pollution) exposures and if you reduce them you have a positive effect on health."

"A lot of the effects are driven by traffic and traffic exposures," said Mudway.

The environmental research group's website initiative was also supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Center based at Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, a health authority covering the inner-city area of south London. Endit

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