Dr Karl Ropkins

Profile

Dr Karl Ropkins is a Senior Research Fellow in Transport Studies within the Environment Faculty of the University of Leeds and Consultant with over fifteen years’ experience working on a range of environmental and related applied (air pollution, vehicle emissions, energy demand, and food supply) projects. His main research interests focus of emissions measurement and environmental impact assessment, while consultant activities, although strongly aligned, include contributions on a broad range of commercial sector instrument and software development, fieldwork and data analysis projects.

Recently, as UK partner on the parSYNC Research Project, an international collaboration set up to bring smaller, lower cost and energy consumption vehicle emission monitoring systems to market, he led key elements of the development of parSYNC®, GasMODTM and CA/GETM technologies, including patent-pending work on the parSYNC’s unique particulate matter/number (PM/PN) sensory array calibration algorithm, and design of the CA/GE, a highly portable PM/PN calibrator. He also recently led the London-phase of work evaluating EDAR, Vehicle Emissions Remote Sensing System (VERSS), as part of work for the UK Department for Transport (DfT) and Transport Systems Catapult (TSC). His related data analytics work includes methods for automating the high-volume analysis of emissions and air quality data (aircraft emissions applied at Heathrow UK, and PEMS, VERSS and other vehicle data used in several studies). He has authored/co-authored numerous papers and a number of software tools, including the open source packages pems.utils, loa and openair.

He is an active participant in efforts to evolve both technical and legislative aspects of the vehicle emissions monitoring sector. He is a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC), Member of Transport Scotland’s Emission Data Analysis Partnership (EDAP) and Member of the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) facilitated Heavy Duty Diesel Emissions Inspection Working Group.

Research interests

Key Research Interests

• Instrument and software development for the environmental sector
• Environmental impact assessment, source apportionment, and related data analytics

Research Projects and Experience

• Benchmarking and Deployment EDAR, a new-to-market Vehicle Emissions Remote Sensing System (VERSS) for UK market, as part of a series of projects for the UK Department for Transport (DfT), Transport Systems Catapult (TSC) and Transport Scotland (2017-present).
• UK partner on the parSYNC Research Project, an international collaboration set up to bring smaller, lower cost and energy consumption vehicle emission monitoring systems to market (2014-present).
• Air pollution data handling and analysis tool development for the NERC funded knowledge exchange project openair (2008-2011)
• Method development and data collection, validation and characterization of probe vehicle exhaust emissions as part of EPSRC funded RETEMM project (2004-2007)
• Coordinated installation phase of HEFCE SRIF 2 award Instrumented Junction project, instrumenting a metropolitan junction to provide synchronous data on vehicle flows, driver behaviour, signal settings, vehicle emissions, air-flows and noise and air pollution (2005-2007)
• Collaborated on EU funded SAPPHIRE project on the source apportionment of airborne pollutants in five European cities, Athens, Birmingham, Copenhagen, Helsinki and Oporto (2002-2003)
• Conducted UTMC funded UTMC28 project, laboratory evaluations and field trials on air quality monitoring sensors and evaluated potential as 'feedbacks' for traffic Urban Traffic Management and Control systems (1999-2001)
• Data collection, analysis and interpretation for other short study and contract impact assessment and emission quantification studies, including work for Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Heathrow Airport, Highways Agency, Transport for London, and Transport Research Laboratory

Employment History

• 2007-Present, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds
• 2004-2007, Research Fellow, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds
• 2002-2003, Research Fellow, Department of Environmental Health and Risk Management, University of Birmingham
• 1998-2002, Research Associate, Department of Biological Sciences (Wye College Campus), then T H Huxley School of Environment, Earth Sciences & Engineering (South Kensington Campus), Imperial College
• 1990-1994, Environmental/Forensic Chemist, M Scan Limited, Mass Spectrometry Consultancy

Qualifications

• PhD, Analytical Chemistry/Food Science, University of Nottingham
• BSc Hons, Marine Chemistry, University College North Wales

Professional memberships

• Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC)
• Member of Transport Scotland’s Emission Data Analysis Partnership (EDAP)
• Member of the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) facilitated Heavy Duty Diesel Emissions Inspection Working Group

Research groups and institutes

• Spatial Modelling and Dynamics