The "Operational Center for Atmospheric Pollution Abatement and Special Measure Uptake for the Greater Area of Athens" (OC) is a particularly complicated system for predicting the atmospheric pollution levels and the occurrence of pollution episodes in order to adopt in advance the appropriate measures. The system also functions as a tool for the development of a long term environmental strategic planning for Athens basin.

The main goal is the development of a reliable, manageable and validated system, that will be used operationally on a daily basis by the Hellenic Ministry for the Environment Physical Planning and Public Works in order to assess the atmospheric pollution in the Athens basin. The system has been structured with emphasis on its open architecture so that it will be possible to incorporate other functionalities in the future.

The OC can be perceived as an aggregation of closely connected and inter-supportive subsystems having the below targets and potentials:

1. To concentrate and file all the data relevant to atmospheric pollution: i. Atmospheric quality data (current and past) ii. Meteorological data (current and past) iii. Emission data from mobile and stationary sources of Athens.

2. To forecast levels and incidents of atmospheric pollution by using multiple prediction models.

3. To allow the correlation between the emission levels and the atmospheric pollution levels.

4. To support the procedure for determining the necessary measures for the reduction of emissions from different sources based on the existing or predicted condition of atmospheric pollution.

5. To allow the examination of the effectiveness of possible interventions for reducing emissions.

6. To support the examination procedure for the application of scenarios of special abatement measures.

7. To support communication with the Public Organizations responsible for the abatement measures to be taken and applied.

8. To inform the public (directly and quickly)

9. To inform the mass media with the relevant emission concentrations and the prediction of episodes.

10. To provide data to Services and Public Organizations in Greece and the European Union.

11. To support the examination of reliability and accuracy of emission data, meteorological observation and prediction data, etc.

AXON developed the system database, all Models and also the GIS application.