1. Topic

2. Introduction

Many alternative measures are described within INTEGAIRE. Some of them have the potential of being adopted for short-term improvement of air quality. Most of them have a medium – long-term character (i.e. realise their potential benefits only after weeks or months from the start up of the measure). A real nightmare for the planner is the fact that in general the measures we can adopt are ‘selective’ with respect to pollutants: some measures help to reduce a given set of them, other ones reduce other sets.

This topic description refers to topics describing the measures and stresses the reasons why those measures can be used for combating specific pollutants.

3. Discussion

Most of the measures described within INTEGAIRE have a very broad scope. As an example, “Mobility Management” and “Taxation Regime” involve a number of specific actions so that the effects on the transport fleet are quite extensive and tend to reduce both energy consumption and the emissions of all the normally considered pollutants. This is in general the case of the measures acting on mobility (measures labelled as T1 in the below table): a more rational mobility in general tends to improve air quality in general terms. Something similar can be expected for measures classified as ‘better traffic management’ (code T2 in the table).

These measures have, in general, positive effects on the various segments of the fleet (diesel and gasoline cars, duty vehicles) and the reductions can be expected for all pollutants. Obviously in the case of freight management the benefits are essentially expected for the typical pollutants emitted by diesel duty vehicles: NOx and PM. The third segment of measures focuses on infrastructures of general nature or specifically in favour of private and public transport (T3 measures in the table): again, we expect extensive benefits with perhaps a “concentration of advantages’” on pollutants mostly emitted by cars in the case of parking and “Park ride” policies. Actions on the environmental quality of vehicles (T4 measures) tend inevitably to reduce all the pollutants since these cleaner vehicles can replace both cars and buses, gasoline and diesel vehicles.

Land use measures and policies tend to modify the mobility demand and so also have, in general, impacts on all pollutants (see L1 measures). Similarly, measures for the reduction of residential emissions have a very broad range of effects (L2 topics). The same is true for measures for reducing industrial emissions (L3 measures).

These considerations are obviously merely qualitative. When we expect an “impact” on a given pollutant, by a given measure, we well know that in quantitative terms this impact can be either small (e.g. a few %) or significant (tens of %). The real figure will depend on a number of factors including the technological or management innovative content of the measure, the extent of application in the urban context (small scale or extensive at metropolitan level), the response of the local population (affected at least by cultural and economic factors).

More detailed considerations on the effects of the several measures dealt with in INTEGAIRE can be found in the specific topics dedicated to the Planning Measures.
Table 1: measures vs expected impact on emissions

4. Recommendation / Conclusion

· This TT offers a panorama of the several measures that local administrations can select for reducing air pollution. The good news provided by this overall picture is in the fact that we have a large menu of initiatives and actions that, in general, will tend to improve the quality of the air through the reduction of emissions of the most important pollutants.

· The bad news for the reader is that in order to understand precisely which actions (and under which circumstances) are to be taken for solving a specific pollution problem, a number of options have to be considered and a detailed analysis of the quantitative effects of the selected measures has to be conducted. This is the essence of advanced planning. This has to be done also through the use of the planning models that are needed for designing and assessing the impacts of the measures we intend to apply in a specific context.

5. Examples / Further Reading

Specific templates dedicated to examples of local actions decided for fighting a quite common environmental problem in central and northern Europe (Nox pollution) have been provided by the cities of Birmingham (see Measures to reduce NO2 in Birmingham, UK) and Malmö (see How to reduce Nox emissions).

6. Additional Documents / Web Links

See CANTIQUE Project results at: www.europa.eu.int/comm/energy_transport/en

Last Updated

25th January 2005