Project L-vehicles Emissions and Noise

LENS is a three-year Horizon Europe project assisting enforcement authorities, cities, and regulators to decrease the contribution of L-category vehicles (LVs: mopeds, motorcycles, tricycles and quadri-mobiles) to noise and air pollution. It develops and promotes interventions and best practices to address light vehicles’ noise and pollutant emissions. It also makes suggestions for regulations to improve the performance of future vehicles, including the control of emissions under real-life driving conditions and the regulatory enforcement of anti-tampering measures.

LENS’s objectives are to:

  • Further enhance, adapt and revise sound and emissions characterisation techniques developed in earlier projects for combined measurements of noise, nanoparticle & gaseous pollutants of LVs.
  • Characterise noise and emissions over a variety of real-world (RW) operating conditions, including strong accelerations, speed variations, high speeds, and cold engine start, as well as characterise pollutants in the lab, especially those which are difficult to measure in the road.
  • Develop, deploy, and validate refined beyond-state-of-the-art techniques in-field to identify LVs with excessive noise and high particle number emissions through the use of on-road measurements for 150 LVs.
  • Link results from screening surveys directly to roadside inspections of suspected tampered LVs and synthesise these results by proposing mitigation actions to prevent tampering of LVs.
  • Compare on-road and regulatory emission and noise results, thus providing specific technical and policy recommendations, as well as simulation models, that can contribute to alleviating the impact of current and future LVs on noise and air pollution.
  • Transfer knowledge and results, tools, and methods to potential users, as well as enhance and deliver a (free) mobility app on best practices guidance for riders.