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Introduction
To succeed with true integration you require
genuine trust established between both the transportation engineers and the air
quality specialists. Both parties need to understand the contribution made to
air pollution by traffic, and how congestion, weather and the road layout and
topography affect emissions and dispersion. When trust has been established,
air quality and more importantly an air quality strategy will be incorporated into
the transport plan and the plan will seek to minimise air pollution. It is
important to set out clear goals with prioritisation in the strategy against
which progress can be met. If zones of high pollution are identified then an
action plan will be necessary to bring about improvements in air quality for
safeguarding public health within the zone. Traffic can separate and isolate
communities by providing an unsurpassable barrier, similarly individual
households can be isolated if they do not have the means of mobility shared by
the rest of society. It is a sad fact that many of the inner city dwellers most
affected by congestion, traffic fumes and isolation do not themselves possess
cars but do suffer their adverse effects.
Discussion
Transportation and air pollution are
intrinsically linked in most societies. The freedom both to travel and to ship
goods over vast distances has never been cheaper and appears to be an ever
growing fact of modern society. The means of mobility has not been planned but
has evolved with a need to provide philosophy that has continued to support
this growth. It is only now that roads in our cities are at capacity with
little or no room for additional growth that we have grasped the nettle and
recognised the limited resource and sought to manage both congestion and the
air pollution it causes. Constructing infrastructure either for public or for
private transport systems is neither cheap nor quick and changes are usually
planned over many years to avoid both disruption and to make schemes
affordable. The most important first step is for air quality specialists to
open discussion with those responsible for transport planning to include the
importance of air pollution in long term planning and in assessing impacts of
smaller schemes over the short time. AQ specialists need to assess the
polluting effects of changes using a mixture of monitoring and modelling and to
promote those schemes with a net positive effect. The importance of getting
schemes to incorporate diffusion tube monitoring before and after
implementation cannot be stressed too highly. Feeding back this information to
the transport planners is even more important because it includes them in the
process and gives them a tool by which improvements can be monitored. Predict
and Provide is no longer seen as a viable policy, especially where high land
values and already overdeveloped towns and cities occupy the land. Proper
facility management is seen as part of the answer. Management
techniques, i.e. congestion charging is used to ration space during
periods of peak demand. Those that pay get faster (earlier) travel. Those
unwilling to pay travel outside of peak demand helping spread road use over a
wider period. Proponents of flexible working practises often quote the ability
to broaden the travel period enables those taking part to spend much less time
travelling. Information must be public and in the public realm and be actively
promoted particularly to stakeholders in each scheme.
Recommendation
Transport Plans must include air quality
assessments and strategies, especially where vehicle emissions form the key
pollutants affecting health and the environment. Air quality assessments must
quantify the sources of key pollutants and identify the contribution from vehicle
emissions. The key role of stationary traffic in contributing to urban peak
pollution needs to be recognised in controlling congestion and reducing
pollution. The professionals involved in these roles must work together in a
spirit of trust and share information particularly where modelling is required
to predict future changes. All parties must recognise the inadequacies of
predictive models both in the traffic and pollution prediction fields.
Professionals in the different disciplines
must build up trust to ensure a common understanding of the problem before it
is possible to identify and rank possible solutions.
Further Reading
Bristol Transport Plan
Bristol Air Quality Strategy
Bristol Air Quality Action
Plan
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