EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Cost-effective Strategies to Improve Urban Air Quality: Urban scale integrated assessment for London

Cost-effective Strategies to Improve Urban Air Quality: Urban scale integrated assessment for London

Introduction

British researchers have assessed the effectiveness of several measures aimed at reducing fine particular matter pollution in London. In total, the effectiveness of 34 emission reduction schemes has been measured.

Description

A British research team has recently compared the cost-effectiveness of different measures to reduce fine particulate matter (PM10) pollution in London. The authors used the Urban Scale Integrated Assessment Model (USIAM). This software tool enables to bring together data on air pollutant sources, their respective contributions to atmospheric concentrations, and human exposure, together with information on measures that may reduce pollutant concentrations and their economic costs.

The major source of PM10 pollution is traffic emissions. Therefore, the authors assessed emission reduction strategies based on emission controls and traffic management schemes. Twenty-four single emission reduction strategies and 34 combined emission reduction strategies were assessed. For each strategy, the estimated percentage of London zones exceeding the Air Quality Standards (AQS) established by the European Commission and the annual implementation costs were considered.

The results of this study indicate that the most cost-effective strategies imply extensive conversion to alternative fuels. The results of the study have been published in the article “Urban scale integrated assessment for London: Which emission reduction strategies are more effective in attaining prescribed PM10 air quality standards by 2005?”.

Background information

Air pollution remains a major concern in Europe, particularly in big cities. The implementation of the Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution under the sixth Environment Action Programme (EAP) of the European Commission is an important step to improve the urban air quality. Being able to model the effects of actions on air quality is therefore of great importance to aid adapted policy development.

Conclusions

The results of the study show that:

the only single strategies that successfully converge towards AQS compliance are the ones involving extensive conversion to alternative fuels;
independently adopted traffic management schemes are not efficient - this result appears to contravene the claimed effectiveness of the current £5 charged parking zone in central London;
most of the combined strategies lead to significantly increased costs without having additive effects on the reduction of PM10 pollution.

The results of this study indicate that the most cost-effective strategies imply extensive conversion to alternative fuels. However, this conversion is not possible in a short time scale. This underlines the need to encourage rapid and large fuel switches for a more sustainable development of European cities.

Contact info

Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo
A. Mediavilla-Sahagún

Publication date

01/04/2006

Researcher

Mediavilla-Sahagún A. et al.

Links

Instituto Mexicano del Petróleo The article is available at the Science Direct web site.

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Transport and infrastructure > Roads and road transport

Keywords

Traffic management, Road charging