Has the ultra low emission zone in London improved air quality?

• Published in: Environmental research letters Vol. 16; no. 12; pp. 124001 - 124016
• Main Authors: Ma, Liang, Graham, Daniel J, Stettler, Marc E J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.12.2021
• Subjects: Air pollution; Air pollution control; Air quality; Air quality standards; causal analysis; Emissions; meteorological normalisation; Nitrogen dioxide; Outdoor air quality; Particulate emissions; Particulate matter; Policies; Pollutants; Pollution dispersion; Pollution levels; regression discontinuity design; Road transportation; Roadsides; structural change; Ultra Low Emission Zone
• ISSN: 1748-9326; 1748-9326
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac30c1

Abstract London introduced the world’s most stringent emissions zone, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), in April 2019 to reduce air pollutant emissions from road transport and accelerate compliance with the EU air quality standards. Combining meteorological normalisation, change point detection, and a regression discontinuity design with time as the forcing variable, we provide an ex-post causal analysis of air quality improvements attributable to the London ULEZ. We observe that the ULEZ caused only small improvements in air quality in the context of a longer-term downward trend in London’s air pollution levels. Structural changes in nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and ozone (O 3 ) concentrations were detected at 70% and 24% of the (roadside and background) monitoring sites and amongst the sites that showed a response, the relative changes in air pollution ranged from −9% to 6% for NO 2 , −5% to 4% for O 3 , and −6% to 4% for particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM 2.5 ). Aggregating the responses across London, we find an average reduction of less than 3% for NO 2 concentrations, and insignificant effects on O 3 and PM 2.5 concentrations. As other cities consider implementing similar schemes, this study implies that the ULEZ on its own is not an effective strategy in the sense that the marginal causal effects were small. On the other hand, the ULEZ is one of many policies implemented to tackle air pollution in London, and in combination these have led to improvements in air quality that are clearly observable. Thus, reducing air pollution requires a multi-faceted set of policies that aim to reduce emissions across sectors with coordination among local, regional and national government.