Results of the CIVITAS CAPITAL Workshop on Air Quality and Clean Vehicles Procurement in European Cities

This workshop was organised as part of the CIVITAS thematic group on Clean Vehicles and Fuels. The aim of the group is to promote the exchange on key policies and measures in this area.

The first day of the workshop concentrated on the topic of air quality, while the second looked at clean vehicles procurement. Day 1 was split in two parts: in the morning the European Commission presented EU level policies on air quality, whereas the afternoon session showed how those have been implemented locally in a number of European cities. The European Commission representative informed that the two main legislative documents guiding the work on air quality in Europe will soon be updated. The National Emission Ceilings Directive, which sets limits for total emissions of certain air pollutants for the Member States has been recently revised. The Ambient Air Quality Directive will soon be revised as well. The representative of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission brought to light the newly developed SHERPA tool. The tool is designed to support local authorities in air quality planning and in assessing the impacts of these plans. Polis’ members Paris, Milan, Madrid and Rotterdam, together with Transport for London and Barcelona Metropolitan then presented their work in improving air quality in their cities using measures such as low emission zones (LEZ), congestion charges and pollution charges depending on the level of pollution of the vehicle.

The second day looked at clean vehicle procurement. The city of Paris presented its attempt to organize an inter-country joint procurement of clean vehicles, such as small commercial vehicles and refuse collection trucks, using the EU Clean Vehicle Directive. Catalonia region and the city of Stockholm presented their own experiences on clean vehicle procurement, the city of Rotterdam on electric charging infrastructure and a representative of the European Commission talked about the revision of the EU Clean Vehicle Directive.

The final agenda of the event can be found here.  

All presentations are available here.

For more information, please contact:

Nicolas Hauw nhauw@polisnetwork.eu

Daniela Stoycheva dstoycheva@polisnetwork.eu