Polis working group on health and transport: "There's a huge gap between what we should be potentially doing to work on air quality"

Sustrans illustrated their approach to air quality in the UK landscape where a new Clean Air Fund will be released to support 29 Local Authorities with Clean Air Plans. Moreover, Sustrans have developed in cooperation with Eunomia a new model that addresses personal exposure. ‘Traditional’ approaches to transport appraisal guidance value reduced emissions using damage cost values. The new model takes into account personal exposures, and reflects the value of changing the extent of exposure to poor air. Another priority is to reduce exposure to air pollution. Modal shift is not enough, we need to encourage poeple to use less exposed routes.

"There's a huge gap between what we should be potentially doing to work on air quality" said Andy Cope, Director of Insight at Sustrans. A new set of 10 recommendations addressing the UK Government will be released in April 2018.

Catalonia outlined their strategy and Air Quality Plan for the Special Protected Area of 40 LAs around Barcelona, where 4 million people live, which is half of the the overal population living in the region. Over 52% of total NOx emissions are coming from transport, that's why a daily traffic reduction will apply from 1 January 2019 targetign the most polluting vehicles. The Regional Government has introduced an Ecolabel scheme for vehicle fleets: 40 companies have signed up and over 8,500 vehicle have now the ecolabel. A Bike to work scheme with free bicycle rental for public employees was introduced in 2014 with the aim to encourage people to buy htier own bike after the first 6 months trial.

Dagmar Köhler, Polis Road safety working group leader introduced the ISAAC project's mock-up tool to identifying which are the most appropriate measures in a city to promote walking and cycling.

Southampton City Council preseted their new Cycling Strategy, and Municipality of Jerusalem introduced the healthy streets and placemaking approach to make downtown Jerusalem a more liveable place.

Presentations can be found on the event webpage (login required).

For more information, please contact Florinda Boschetti.