A new approach to mobility can counter air pollution in Italy's and Europe's major cities, limiting the resulting social and health costs. A new study by the European Public Health Alliance — an organisation representing more than 80 NGOs working on the issue — focuses on transport, which, it is worth noting, has a smaller impact on air quality than domestic heating and industry. The work centres in particular on the impact of older, more polluting vehicles and on the strategies put in place to restrict their circulation.

Particulate matter and nitrogen oxides: how the figures change

The research highlights how banning polluting vehicles could reduce harmful particulate matter and nitrogen oxide pollution in cities with more than one million residents by up to 23 per cent and 36 per cent respectively, saving up to 130 million euros per year in health costs and related expenditure. The researchers examined 28 different types of mobility-related urban policies currently adopted in various contexts — from zero-emission public buses to electric scooter sharing — to assess their effects on reducing PM10, PM2.5 and NOx.

Restricting the most environmentally damaging vehicles in cities such as Milan, London, Kraków and Athens has proven to be an effective measure: harmful particulate matter and nitrogen oxide pollution fell by 23 per cent and 36 per cent respectively. The policy of applying a congestion charge for the entry of particularly polluting vehicles into cities has also yielded good results: in London, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Milan, PM10 and PM2.5 levels fell by up to 17 per cent (and NOx by 12 per cent), saving 95 million euros in social costs.

Mobility: restricting parking is a measure that works

Changing the pricing and availability of parking in cities has proven to be a high-impact and low-cost option for local authorities, not least because the availability of parking spaces has a direct bearing on citizens' choices regarding car ownership. In the few cases where this tool has been used specifically to curb air pollution, researchers were able to identify an emissions reduction of between five and ten per cent. On the other hand, the study finds that state-funded car sharing schemes deliver satisfactory results only in very large cities; they also end up competing with local public transport and may even risk increasing emissions where the shared vehicles are older.

Two thirds of European cities breach the air quality standards set by the World Health Organization, with poorer and peripheral neighbourhoods being the worst affected. The restrictions imposed from March of last year — linked to the pandemic emergency — helped to clean up the air rapidly, but in several cities pollution has already returned to pre-crisis levels; and Italy has been breaching European Union air quality rules for a decade. "Pollution — explains the Alliance's interim secretary general, Sascha Marschang — made the pandemic worse, that is now clear. A dirty cloud has been hanging over cities for many decades, causing asthma, heart disease and lung cancer. While we fight the coronavirus through vaccines, we must also fight this cloud of disease. Now is the time for city administrators to seize the momentum from the pandemic to build back better and truly improve people's health and their environment." The moment is more opportune than ever, as the European Recovery and Resilience Plan provides for a total of 627 billion euros, a third of which is earmarked for green investments, including transport.