Managing Urban Air Quality:

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Managing Urban Air Quality

• Essential Requirements

The World Bank 14 May 2002
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What are priority areas?

• Better understanding of sources linked to
  exposure
• Right standards and regulations
• Enforcement of standards
• Urban planning coupled with strong traffic
  management
• Efficient, financially viable and cleaner public
  transport sector

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Better understanding of sources of exposure

• Critical need in South Asia to understand where
  fine particles come from
• Only preliminary and conflicting data available
• Few data on elemental-to-organic carbon ratio
  suggest fossil fuel combustion important
• Correlations between PM10 and NO2 collected over
  a year do not suggest transport as a main
  contributor
• Need for focused investigation by researchers,
  coordination with government agencies, and rapid
  dissemination of information by the media and NGOs

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Potential price of not knowing sources

• Wrong sources targeted
• Resources spent to fix the wrong problem ? Low
  benefit-to-cost ratio, only marginal improvement
  in air quality? Credibility of environmental
  policy called into question
• Worsening air pollution problem as the important
  sources remain unaddressed

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Right standards and regulations

• If failure rate is high, evasion and corruption
  become rampant.
• Example emission standards
• If compliance cost is high and cannot be
  recovered (because of price control, for
  example), again evasion and corruption become
  common, or formal sector firms go bankrupt and
  informal sector operators take over.

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Where should standards be pitched?

• Manageable failure rate
• Example 20 for in-use vehicle emission
  standards
• Reasonable chances of monitoring and enforcement
• If no capacity to monitor and enforce, no point
  in imposing standards
• Standards should be tightened in areas where
  cost-effective measures are available

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Enforcement of standards

• Better to have lax standards that are enforced
  strictly, than stringent standards that are not
  enforced
• Lack of enforcement discredits environmental
  policy
• Greater potential for improvement with some
  enforcement than no enforcement
• Check every operator vs. go after gross polluters
• Example Monitoring frequency is increased for
  factories that have been caught in the past with
  non-compliance

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How can we maximize use of limited resources?

• Example Requirements of successful vehicle I/M
• Targeted vehicles show up for tests
• Gross polluters are less likely to report
• Emission levels are accurately measured
• Essential for identifying gross polluters
• Test procedures do not allow temporary tuning to
  pass
• High polluters are more likely to resort to
  temporary tuning to pass
• System minimizes false passes and false failures
• False passes and false failures discredit I/M

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I/M Lessons from Mexico City

• Suitable technology
• Chassis dynamometer tests to enable NO
  measurements to prevent tuning late and lean
• Administrative control
• Blind test lanes, maximum automation, data sent
  directly to central location
• Minimize incentives to cheat
• Test and repair conflict of interest?
• Must be profitable to run test lanes. Too many
  test centers resort to dishonesty to attract
  more customers

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Too expensive?

• Concentrate resources on identifying high-usage
  gross polluters ? test every vehicle twice or
  more a year
• Candidate vehicle categories commercial certain
  age and older
• Link commercial vehicle registration to passing
  the test

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Encouragingmarket-based enforcement

• Developing a competitive transparent market
• By deregulating the sector with proper regulatory
  framework fuels (self-policing), industry
• By enforcing standards and creating the need for
  industry focusing on compliance (repair shops,
  equipment manufacturers)
• Informing the public
• Abuses are possible in part because of
  information asymmetry
• Example Clamping down on fuel adulteration,
  mis-labeling and short-selling
• Public display of testing (Shell, Pakistan)
• Seals of quality (Moscow)

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Urban planning and traffic management

• Issue
• FSI in India is low, leading to unnecessary urban
  sprawl and lower investment
• Increasing FSI in CBD can bring benefits if
  accompanied by strong traffic management.
• Traffic management
• Can realize significant short-term benefits
• Is low cost
• But requires
• High degree of political, institutional and human
  resource commitment to ensure sustainability

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How does traffic management work?

• For a given fuel and vehicle combination, exhaust
  emissions depend strongly on vehicle speed and
  speed variability.
• Traffic management improves traffic flows by
  reducing the number and duration of stops, and
  increasing travel speed.
• A combination of traffic engineering, demand
  management, and measures giving priority to
  efficient public transport service is the best
  approach.
• Benefits include lower emissions, better
  mobility, greater road and pedestrian safety, and
  more efficient use of road infrastructure.

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What are key elements of successful traffic
management?

• Establishing traffic management units with
  appropriate authority and ability to plan and
  implement traffic management measures
• Involving police authorities working in concert
  with traffic management units
• Implementing demand management in parallel
  because successful traffic management invites
  more traffic

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Options for traffic management

• Traffic signal control systems linking
  uncoordinated signals to create green waves,
  allowing nearside turn on red
• Bus priority systems peak period bus lanes,
  segregated busways
• Parking policies limiting on-street parking,
  requiring minimum parking provision in all new
  developments, pricing
• Protection of non-motorized transport

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Public transport sector reform

• Shift to public transport can reduce congestion
  and emissions
• Public transport must be made more attractive and
  cleaner to effect the shift and realize the
  benefits
• Inefficient and cash-strapped public transport
  operators will not maintain vehicles or provide
  high quality service

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Restructuring urban public transport sector

• Stop the shift to small vehicles operating
  informally or to private cars by strengthening
  public transport
• Incentives to improve internal efficiency
• More efficient design of route networks
• Incentives for efficiency improvement
• Commercialization Operate on a commercial basis
  to be financially independent
• Fair, transparent competition in a level playing
  field

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Is competition bad for the environment?

• Examples of adverse effects of competition
• Excess supply Santiago, Chile
• Use of old polluting vehicles Lima, Peru
• Dangerous operating practices Delhi
• ? Unregulated competition in the market can be
  dangerous and inefficient.

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Regulated competition for the market

• Award of exclusive franchises of limited duration
  and scope on the basis of a competitively bid
  tender
• Fares and quality of service as criteria
• Reductions in cost per km of 20-40
• Examples Santiago de Chile Transmilenio
  Bogotás bus
• rapid transit system

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Transmilenio, Bogotá

• Developed and implemented between 1/98 and 12/00
• Exclusive busways on central lanes of major
  arterial roads, roads for feeder buses, stations
• Express services in trunk lines, (closed)
  stations located every 500 m, up to 45,000
  passengers per hour per direction
• No subsidies, ticket cost US0.36
• Traffic accident fatalities eliminated, corridor
  PM emissions reduced by up to 30, travel time
  reduced by 1/3

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Recommendations

• Address knowledge gaps in sources of fine
  particles, especially area sources.
• Pursue multiple approaches to enforcement,
  including setting realistic standards and use of
  market mechanisms.
• Design policy incentives that take into account
  the interests of different partiesand that
  follow realistic timetables.
• Introduce industry and transport sector reforms
  aimed at making operators efficient and
  financially viable.