1. Topic

2. Introduction

All European cities face air quality requirements derived from national air quality strategy objectives. The progressively strict EU vehicle emission standards have helped a lot to improve the situation over the years. But still many cities with unfavourable climatic circumstances often surpass the air quality standards especially with respect to PM and NOx from heavy goods vehicles and are forced to take additional measures. This also goes for tourist centres, although here the problems are less due to HDVs. Individual measures such as banning odd/even number plates on odd/even days or car-free days are not sufficient. Permanent institutional, planning and technical solutions are needed.

Old cities often have a central area with narrow streets where traffic has increased to a non desirable volume causing air pollution, noise and congestion. Most city centres, old or young, have the same problem. Road traffic often stands for 50-70 % of the air pollution. This is a situation facing many who are responsible for city planning, traffic and air quality management. Transport is needed for residents living inside the area and for goods delivery to shops and enterprises. Primarily the transport need should be minimized but increasing the use of low-emitting vehicles is another way to improve air quality.

The 2000 EU CANTIQUE study and a study by the UK Transport ministry found a low-emission zone to be the most cost effective tool for meeting air quality standards.

At a smaller scale pedestrian areas and silence areas near hospitals can also be mentioned as nucleuses of low emission zones.

3. Discussion

What kind of vehicles should you aim at? The most drastic measure is to ban all motor vehicles or certain types of vehicles with internal combustion engines in a smaller or larger area where it is motivated regarding health, safety or preservation of buildings and monuments. An environmentally sensitive area contains many apartment buildings, streets heavily used by pedestrians and cyclists, parks or green areas easily harmed by the traffic. Of all vehicles the most polluting and noisiest vehicles are old Heavy Duty Vehicles (trucks and buses) equipped with diesel engines. The diesel exhaust gases are cancerous and contain much particulate matter and nitrogen oxides. If the environmental quality of these vehicles can be improved much will be gained. Particle filter, catalytic converter and equipment for reduction of NO_x can reduce the emissions. Exchange of the engine is another way. New vehicles should preferably fulfil both the European environmental class and noise requirement.

The European cities forming the “Car-Free Cities Club”, established in 1994, work towards reductions in urban car use and possibly a complete ban on the use of private car during working hours in inner cities.

Is it worthwhile? Environmental zones in Sweden, as recommended, has led to particle emissions being reduced by 15-20 %, hydro carbon emission being reduced by 5-9 %, nitrogen oxides emission being reduced by 1-8 % during the first year after the zones were established.

It is important to recognise, however, that, despite an improved local environment, car free inner cities will only generate a very small share of the required reduction of CO2, because the greatest part of the present urban transport and its expected growth are localised in the urban regions outside the inner cities.

Economy. Through comparing the environmental gains achieved with the costs incurred by the companies an assessment can be made of the net profits or loss to the society. There are different ways to calculate this. The Swedish cities judged the total gains to be greater than the costs to the society.

Obstacles? Before any further steps to declare a certain area Environmental Zone, with requirements for heavy traffic, the legal aspects of course need to be checked for any hinder or limitation.

4. Recommendation / Conclusion

Low emission zones are a promising institutional solution to provide positive surroundings for environmentally optimised urban and traffic planning and the diffusion of emissions after-treatment and clean vehicle technologies.

In order to reinforce each other institutional and technical aspects it is necessary that scale-effects step over a certain threshold. A European wide approach is therefore necessary. Into more details the main recommendations arising seem to be the following:

• Differences in the local approaches have to be searched in the four components: geographical extent, types of vehicles to be targeted, emissions criteria and operational issues;
• To overcome acceptability issues by means of proven effective as well as innovative means of communication and stakeholder participation such as European Awareness Scenario Methodology;
• To use integrated urban and traffic planning in order to optimise low-car-use and stimulate "slow traffic" (walking and bicycle use) and public transport ridership;

· To develop the necessary supporting technologies for vehicle recognition;

· To evaluate the effects on air quality, the economic and transport impact, the public acceptability, costs, benefits and funding of the zones;

· To define the sensitive area where you plan to introduce special requirements for heavy duty vehicles equipped with diesel engine (e.g. vehicles with a gross weight of more than 3.5 metric tons should not be allowed to enter the zone if they are older than 8 years) and

· Age of the vehicle and its allowance to run must be verified by a sticker provided by the municipality (exemptions from the age requirement may be made for vehicles: according to Euro IV, with approved after-treatment device, exchanged engine, etc).

Moreover, the most part of present and future traffic is and will be concentrated in more peripheral urban areas; therefore the progressive extension of low emission zones to these districts, in coordination with selected accompanying measure is recommended.

Low emission zones allow a reduction of all the main urban air pollutants since they impact the emission of both diesel (NOx and PM strong emitters) and gasoline vehicles (strong CO and VOCs emitters).

5. Examples / Further Reading

Kuopio (Finland)

In Kuopio, an attempt to modify the urban structure in order to reduce the dependence on the car is developed. An analysis of the pattern of urban growth between 1960 and 1990 showed suburban growth in scattered settlements outside of the historic core and a low density new town. The new urban development plan is focused on infilling previously isolated settlements with car-free nuclear neighbourhoods served by a reorganised bus transit system.

Bremen (Germany)

Bremen is developing a neighbourhood without cars (Hollerland). The idea arose from a study of the space requirements of moving and parked cars. Almost a quarter of the entire estate can be used for other purposes as no parking space is supplied: usually 40% of the road space is required for parking, which can be reduced to about 17% with the car free scheme. The residents plan a car-sharing scheme for use.

Rome (Italy)

In Italy the access to the zones is generally restricted to public interest vehicles and private cars owned by residents and shops operators. A major problem is access control, which requires vehicle recognition as well as enforcement and policing. Public acceptability has often been low, leading to infringements and protests. In Rome, the limited traffic zone has been progressively extended to a large area within the ring railway line (12,5 km2 corresponding to 5% of the whole town surface and where about 50% of the whole traffic volume is concentrated). Starting 2002, the area is off-limits for non-ecological diesel private vehicles (out of 91/441 EC) and non-catalytic gasoline private vehicles (out of 91/441 EC). Moreover, all electric vehicles have free parking duty in the whole town.

Sweden

The major four cities in Sweden have implemented “miljozones” which restrict access to designated areas to the cleanest generation of trucks. The success of the approach will lead to enlargement of the zones and including more types of vehicles. The zones have helped introduce emission after-treatment technologies on buses and trucks. A remaining problem is how to deal with cross-country traffic, which requires a European approach. The four Swedish cities now are discussing an extension of the regulations also to comprise light vehicles, setting up demands for the vehicles operating on fuel other than petrol or diesel for more than 50 % of the time. Commercially available alternatives are electricity, ethanol E85, oilseed rape RME, natural gas, biogas and propane.

Ticino (Switzerland)

In summer 2001, the Swiss province of Ticino launched the "VEL2" programme for promoting efficient vehicles, which includes a large number of communicating, financial and educating measures. In this context, the two Ticino cities Bellinzona (Ticino capital) and Lugano are planning to implement zones with a limited or favoured access for the targeted vehicles.

Zurich (Swizerland)

The City of Zurich is studying different approaches for limiting access for both, passenger cars and goods transport. For the latter the objective is to build transhipment terminals at the entrance of the City, from where goods will be distributed into the inner City by clean vehicles.

London (United Kingdom)

The City of London is investigating the feasibility of low emission zones to reduce air pollution. The study provides information on the implementation, operation, air quality effects, economic impact, transport impact, public acceptability, costs, benefits and funding options for low-emissions zones (LEZ) and defines them as an area from which polluting vehicles that do not comply with set emissions standards are barred from entering.

Other examples:

Environmental Zone

Further Examples:

6. Additional Documents / Web Links

· Rules for Environmental Zones: http://www.trafikkontoret.goteborg.se/ (click ‘Miljö’ and then ‘Miljözon’, you will find a pdf file in English, describing the regulations).

· Trendsetter website: http://www.trendsetter-europe.org/index_id_486, see under Reports/Reports by language (here attached):

· Environmental zones in Europe (http://213.131.156.10/xpo/bilagor/20030509053222.pdf)

· Clean vehicles in Europe (see also the section Traffic Measures: Cleaner Vehicles): (http://213.131.156.10/xpo/bilagor/20031106012151.pdf)

The same website gives examples of the Environmental Zone in Prague (CZ) (in environmental zones access heavy vehicles might be exempted, or for old vehicles with higher emissions than modern ones), Strolling Zone in Graz (Austria) (in strolling zones motor vehicles are completely prohibited, or allowed only during restricted hours, for example for deliverances in early mornings) and Car-free zone in Pécs (HU).

· TELLUS Project: Transport and Environment Alliance for Urban Sustainability (Cleaner and better transport in cities. Sustainable urban transport for the Europe of tomorrow http://www.tellus-cities.net/index_13_en.html. Five European cities keen to demonstrate that integrated urban transport policies can significantly contribute to fighting today’s traffic problems in Europe: Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Berlin (Germany), Gothenburg (Sweden), Gdynia (Poland) and Bucarest (Romania). The project started in February 2002 and will run for 48 months.

· City of London low emission zones website: http://www.london-lez.org/

· Feasibility study for the City of London (to be downloaded): http://www.london-lez.org/documents/phase_2_feasibility_summary.pdf

· UK clear zones website: http://www.clearzones.org.uk/

· Guidelines for the implementation of Clear Zones: http://www.clearzones.org.uk/home.htm, section “Publication”

· Example of Nottingham (UK) Clear Zone: http://www.nottinghamclearzone.com/

· City of Palermo – Limited Traffic Zone: Interesting Website to visit: http://spazioinwind.libero.it/ambientepalermo/Environmental%20Unit%20STATEMENT.htm (Contact details: Antonio Mazzon Email: amazzon@kadmos.com)

· VEL2 Ticino programme: http://www.vel2.ch/

· UTOPIA Project – Deliverable 10: Evaluation of policy aspects – November 1999

· Clear Zones: 5th Annual Conference “From vision to reality” Clear Zones development and the impact they are achieving on the ground. Nottingham Council House (11^th March 2004) http://www.clearzones.org.uk/home.htm

· Clean Vehicles and Fuels European Symposium and Exhibition (1-4^th June 2004) http://www1.stocon.se/wms/9/10334.asp

Other examples in EU Projects:

• CENTAUR: Barcelona (Spain) and Bristol (UK).
• ENTIRE: Caen (France).
• JUPITER2: Gent (Belgium), Aalborg (Denmark), Bilbao (Spain) and Merseyside (UK).

• SAGITTAIRE: Besancon (France), Luxembourg (Luxembourg) and Sintra (Portugal).

Last Updated

25th January 2005