NEMO brings together research institutes, corporations, local governments and authorities from 11 of its member states, to develop a turn-key solution for the integration of new systems into existing infrastructure in order to measure and mitigate emissions and noise levels. The NEMO project will contribute to the improvement of air quality and reduce the impact of traffic noise, thus promoting the creation of healthier cities.

At the centre of the solution is a new autonomous remote-sensing system that can be fitted to tolling or access systems and protect Low-Emission Zones and other sensitive areas from high-emitters. The autonomous remote sensing system identifies noisy and polluting vehicles in existing traffic and make this information available to tolling or access systems. The system can be fully integrated into both road and rail infrastructure and will have the tools available to communicate with the existing data structure of transport operators and authorities.

The initiative will also counter the emissions using more holistic solutions, such as road texture optimization, green barriers, photocatalytic materials and microplastics collection in the asphalt layer pore network. The solutions will be tested in several European cities to demonstrate the advantages of its urban usage as a tool to monitor and identify noisy and high emitter vehicles.

The goal is a 30% improvement in air quality for road traffic and at least a 20% reduction in noise in the target areas. For rail traffic, NEMO will also work with noise detection of individual wagons in passing trains to improve the effectivity of tolling or banning policies for noisy cast iron block-braked wagons.

The developed solutions will be demonstrated in four cities: Madrid (road traffic), Valencia (maritime and rail traffic), Florence (road traffic) and Susteren (railroad line).