Revved up for the A1

ECOSERV in the pits at Durban 's street race

As anticipation surrounding Durban 's A1 Grand Prix on 23-25 February builds to fever pitch, ECOSERV finds itself in the midst of burning rubber tyres and screaming engines.

With many disgruntled residents voicing unhappiness about high noise levels during practice sessions and the main race, A1 race organizers have this year contracted ECOSERV to measure noise and air pollution levels during the three-day event.

Steering for ECOSERV are Gaby Mizan, measuring noise levels, and Robin Bissett, measuring air pollution.

“In terms of the A1 Grand Prix environmental management plan, organizers have to quantify the level of impact that the race will have on the environment. We have been brought in to address the air quality and sound level aspects of this plan,” says Robin.

Impacts arising from vehicular activity – not only from the Grand Prix cars but also from spectator's and other support vehicles – will be measured. The indicator pollutants to be measured - that are known to be associated with vehicle emissions - are nitrogen dioxide (NO₂ ), benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene and xylene s. “It is not cost effective to consider using sophisticated continuous air quality monitoring stations,” says Robin.

A simple and significantly more cost-effective screening method known as passive samplers are therefore being used to measure the average concentrations over the entire duration of the event from Thursday afternoon until Monday morning.

“I have set up passive samplers at the pits and at a nearby residential block of flats to measure impacts from the racing cars. A third sampler, to be used as the background or “control” site, was deployed at the City Hall and will serve as a reference site for comparitive purposes.

A second measurement survey will be applied at the same locations after the event and these concentrations will be used as reference. All samples will be sent to an external laboraory for analyses, and results should be reported to the client about a month after the event.

Gaby Mizan will set up sound level meters in two flats positioned next to the street track on the main race day. “The first flat is positioned very close to a bend in the road where cars will be accelerating. The second is next to a straight where cars will be racing flat out. This will give me a representative measure of sound levels.”

Gaby is taking measurements from flats and not from the pits or stands as the main purpose of the exercise is to see what residents are experiencing in terms of sound, nuisance and disturbance.

Noise sources last year were not only the gut-wrenching roar of the A1 engines, but also the unrelenting blowing of vuvuzelas, the public address system and the roaring of the crowd.

“Measuring community noise is complicated,” says Gaby. “The sound level meter doesn't differentiate between noise sources, it simply picks up any noise in that environment. But while the cars are racing, I expect that high noise to overshadow other sounds.”