Observation of Unusual High Particulate Mass and Number Concentration during Traffic Ban Hours of the 2009 Car Free Sunday in the Brussels Urban Area

Vanderstraeten, Peter; Forton, M.; Brasseur, Olivier; Lénelle, Y.; Meurrens, A.; Offer, Zvi Yehoshua

doi:10.5775/fg.2067-4635.2011.035.i

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Reducing health impacts from air pollution requires understanding the sources contributing to human exposure and quantifying their contributions. Vehicular traffic is one if not the major source of air pollution in urban areas [5][6][7]. It has become the dominant source of air pollutants, including carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or hydrocarbons (HCs), nitrogen oxides (NO x ), and particulate matter (PM), especially carbonaceous particles, contributing with around 11% to PM 2.5 concentrations across Europe and 28% to Black Carbon (as annual means for 2017) [8] Policies aiming to reduce traffic emissions comprise measures such as reducing the number of vehicles (congestion charges and parking restrictions), the progressive increase of active transport, such as cycling and walking, the transition to electric vehicles, low emission zones, and/or speed limit reduction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vehicular Traffic in Urban Areas: Health Burden and Influence of Sustainable Urban Planning and Mobility

2022

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Vehicular traffic is one of the major sources of air pollution in European cities. This work aims to understand which characteristics of the urban environment could influence mobility-related air pollution, quantify the health impacts of exposure to traffic-derived PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations, and assess the potential health benefits expected from traffic interventions. The health benefits modeled are intended to provide a set of comparable data to support decision-makers and encourage informed decision-making to design healthier cities. Targeting a large geographical coverage, 12 European cities from 9 countries were comparatively assessed in terms of mean daily traffic volume/area, the number of public transport stops/area, and the percentage of green and outdoor leisure areas, among other urban indicators. This was implemented using an open-source data mining tool, which was seen as a useful engine to identify potential strategies to improve air quality. The comparison of urban indicators in the selected cities evidenced two trends: (a) cities with the most heterogeneous distribution of public transport stops, as an indicator of poor accessibility, are also those with the lowest proportion of km dedicated to cycleways and footways, highlighting the need in these cities for more sustainable mobility management; and (b) the percentage of green and outdoor leisure areas may influence the share of journeys by bicycle, pointing out that promoting the perception of green routes is relevant to enhance the potential of active transport modes. Socioeconomic factors can be key determinants of the urban indicators and would need further consideration. For the health impact assessment (HIA), two baseline scenarios were evaluated and compared. One is based on mean annual traffic contributions to PM2.5 concentrations in each target city (ranging between 1.9 and 13 µg/m3), obtained from the literature, and the second is grounded on mean annual NO2 concentrations at all available traffic and urban background stations within each city (17.2–83.5 µg/m3), obtained from the European Environment Agency database. The intervention scenarios modeled were designed based on traffic mitigation strategies in the literature, and set to ranges of 6–50% in traffic-derived PM2.5 concentrations and of 4–12.5% in NO2 concentrations. These scenarios could result in only a 1.7% (0.6–4%) reduction in premature mortality due to exposure to traffic-derived PM2.5, and 1.0% (0.4–2%) due to exposure to NO2, as the mean for all the cities. This suggests that more ambitious pollution abatement strategies should be targeted.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vehicular Traffic in Urban Areas: Health Burden and Influence of Sustainable Urban Planning and Mobility

2022

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“…In some instances, such as in Milan, Italy, and Brussels, Belgium, the impact on air pollution was negligible when measuring levels of PM (10 and 2.5). In both cases, PM concentrations were almost equal inside and outside restricted travel areas [61,105]. However, reductions of up to 78% were measured for concentrations of black carbon, prompting conclusions from both studies that PM may not be the most suitable indicator of TRAP mitigation as a result or the car-free initiatives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health

Glazener¹,

Wylie²,

Waas³

et al. 2022

Curr Envir Health Rpt

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Purpose of review In this paper, we seek to elucidate the impact of car-free days and events on human health. Car-free days and events are often designed to alleviate the impact of transportation-related air pollution, noise, physical inactivity, traffic congestion, or other detrimental externalities of private motor vehicle travel. We reviewed existing peer-reviewed and gray literature to understand the variety of potential public health impacts that have been measured as a result of car-free days or events and associated changes in environmental exposures and lifestyles. Recent findings The impacts of car-free days and events are highly variable and seem to depend on the scope (frequency, duration, and geographic size) and goals of each car-free day and event. Most of the existing literature measures impacts in terms of air and noise pollution and some studies focus on physical activity metrics. In some cases, car-free days and events were successful in reducing the concentration of certain air pollutants but had little or adverse impacts on the concentration of others. Often, traffic is diverted from cordoned areas to surrounding streets, displacing traffic congestion and adverse environmental exposures to other areas of a city, with potential understudied implications to environmental justice. Summary Car-free days and events are often an attractive policy option; however, they require intensive planning to be successful. The organization and execution of car-free days and events, as well as public support and stakeholder engagement, greatly influence the level of success and the sustainability of such initiatives. Health benefits may be a palatable and convincing argument to the general public. However, very few studies focus on actual health impacts associated with car-free days and events. Future research could be most useful if it focused on measuring health outcomes associated with car-free days and events through longitudinal studies.

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Observation of Unusual High Particulate Mass and Number Concentration during Traffic Ban Hours of the 2009 Car Free Sunday in the Brussels Urban Area

Cited by 2 publications

References 7 publications

Vehicular Traffic in Urban Areas: Health Burden and Influence of Sustainable Urban Planning and Mobility

Vehicular Traffic in Urban Areas: Health Burden and Influence of Sustainable Urban Planning and Mobility

The Impacts of Car-Free Days and Events on the Environment and Human Health

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