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Summary of the impact

Poor air quality is an important public health issue especially in cities
where traffic is the major source of pollution. It is estimated that
29,000 people die prematurely in the UK each year, and 310,000 in Europe,
because of air pollution. King's research, based on the London Air Quality
Network (LAQN), including emissions modelling and vehicle profiling,
indicated that improvements in air quality could be achieved by
restricting the entrance of specific vehicle classes into urban areas.
These research outputs were utilised by the Mayor of London to introduce
the Congestion Charging Scheme (CCS), from 2003 to the present, and the
London Low Emission Zone (LEZ), from 2008 to the present. This research,
together with King's ongoing evaluation of air quality and the impact of
traffic control schemes in London, has created increasing international
interest in this method of pollution control resulting in the adoption of
similar interventions across Europe.

Underpinning research

King's scientists quantify the impacts of air pollutants on health
King's College London's Medical Research Council (MRC)-Public Health
England (PHE) Centre for Environment and Health is a leading centre for research on air
quality and health. The Centre is led by Professor Frank Kelly (King's
1992-date). In 1995, King's established the London Air Quality Network, which has evolved into the largest urban air
quality network in Europe, consisting of over 120 fixed measurement sites
for a range of pollutants including oxides of nitrogen (NOx),
notably nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3) and
particulate matter (PM). King's research used information from the LAQN to
understand the sources of atmospheric pollution and to estimate the health
impacts of these pollutants in a major urban environment. In cities,
vehicles are the main contributors to air pollution; transport-related
pollutants are strong oxidants which, when in contact with the delicate
respiratory airways, lead to damage (Kelly, 2003). When these finding were linked to experimental chamber
studies in human volunteers demonstrating decreased airway function and
inflammation (Mudway and Kelly, 2004), this work contributed to the growing literature
that identified exposure to transport-related pollutants as a cause of ill
health.

King's scientists design and evaluate interventions to reduce harmful
exposures
The King's team began research to inform the design and evaluation of
traffic control schemes to improve air quality and hence health. Working
in partnership with Transport for London, King's researchers utilised
automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) data in combination with the
King's urban dispersion model to predict the air quality impact of the
introduction of a congestion charging scheme (CCS). A temporal-spatial
design was employed in which modelled and measured air quality data from
LAQN monitoring stations were used to compare time periods before
(2001-2002) and after (2003-2004) the CCS was introduced. Using a range of
approaches, King's researchers found evidence of only small changes in air
quality from the CCS (Beevers and Carslaw, 2005). However, attributing changes to the introduction
of the CCS alone is difficult because the scheme was introduced at a time
when other traffic and emissions interventions were also being implemented
(Kelly et al., 2011a).
King's research suggested that the health benefits of the CCS introduction
might be small (Tonne et al., 2008) and so began to determine the benefit of a London-wide
low emission zone (LEZ). Prior to activation of the first phase of the LEZ
in 2008, King's research showed that a LEZ could provide improvements in
urban air quality, crucially predicting that the emissions controls
enforced by the scheme were expected to have the greatest effect close to
major roads with high volumes of heavy-goods-vehicle traffic. This
research was instrumental in guiding the design of a carefully considered
and extensive environmental impacts monitoring network, directed from
King's, that generates robust air quality data from baseline to the
present as part of our ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of the LEZ
(Kelly et al., 2011b).

Details of the impact

Impacts of King's air quality research include: evidence linking poor air
quality in urban environments to traffic; evidence to inform the policies
to improve air quality; contributing to the design and implementation and
evaluation of traffic control schemes in the UK; informing the development
of schemes in other countries; evidence of measurable improvements in air
quality; evidence of improvements in health outcomes. Beneficiaries from
the research include the populations of urban centres that have benefited
from control measures directed at traffic related air pollution.

King's research influences air quality strategy in London
In 2000, London's air quality was the worst in the UK and there was
evidence to show that these pollution levels caused serious health
impacts. Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London published the `The Mayor's
Air Quality Strategy: Cleaning London's Air,' in 2001 (updated in
2002) which drew heavily on information from King's London Air Quality
Network (LAQN). The strategy put forward a range of policies and proposals
designed to move London toward the point where air pollution no longer
poses a significant risk to human health. The underpinning research from
King's, constituted an extensive programme that has delivered innovative
modelling and monitoring methodologies, guiding the design of the
Congestion Charging Scheme and subsequently the world's largest low
emission zone (LEZ). London's LEZ was proposed in order to "accelerate the
introduction of cleaner vehicles and reduce the numbers of older, more
polluting vehicles" into the capital. King's researchers engaged in the
LEZ feasibility study and, in 2005, King's was chosen to partner Transport
for London (TfL) in delivering the London LEZ, which became a key
component of The Mayor's Air Quality Strategy. In the assessment period,
results from King's monitoring and modelling were used extensively by the
Mayor's office. `The Mayor's Air Quality Strategy' (2010) details current pollution
levels and highlights measures which `will result in significant
reductions in pollution concentrations across Greater London.' King's LAQN
is specifically identified for the contribution to monitoring of air
quality and emissions. The LAQN index, developed by King's, is used
throughout the report to `provide a useful picture of the overall
improvements in London's air quality'. The London Air Quality Network not only informs Transport for London, but can
be used by the public to find, for instance, street-level, interactive
current pollution maps; incidences of high pollution episodes; news,
videos and podcasts pertaining to air quality; interactive graphs by
London borough and yearly reports.

The LEZ was established in 2008 and has continued to the present. It
operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It applies to diesel-engine,
heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), buses and coaches, larger vans and minibuses,
using cameras to identify the registration numbers of vehicles and the
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) database to identify a
vehicle's emissions. The impact of the research undertaken by King's in
partnership with TfL, not only encompasses the evaluation the
effectiveness of the LEZ on an ongoing basis, but also ensured that key
projected impacts of the scheme were understood and characterised well in
advance of the implementation date, as part of the monitoring network
design process. The 2008 TfL report `London Low Emission Zone — Impacts Monitoring' details the collaboration
with the King's LAQN saying that measurements provided by them "will be
the first point of reference for stakeholders assessing the air quality
impacts of the scheme and are the legal basis for assessing compliance
with UK and European air quality objectives." This report also discusses
the health impacts of the LEZ, utilising data that contributed to the Tonne et al, (2008)
and Kelly et al, (2011b) research reports.

King's scientists provide expert advice and advocacy to UK
policy-makers
Prof Frank Kelly from King's has actively advocated the merits of LEZs
when giving expert advice to Environmental Audit Committee enquiries into
air quality in the UK. Prof Kelly gave detailed verbal evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee to
aid in the compilation of their Air Quality Report. This report detailed the government's response to a
previous meeting of the committee that found that "air quality was not
seen as a priority across Government" and as such the UK was "failing to
meet a range of domestic and European targets." Failure to meet standards
could incur millions of pounds of fines. The single most important
exposure to harmful air pollutants was known to be caused by transport. It
was decided local authorities must be involved in tackling poor air
quality. The government undertook this current enquiry to "assess the
extent to which the Government had implemented the processes outlined in
its response and to assess their results." Prof Kelly was one of the key
people giving evidence and a reference was also made to LAQN documents
when discussing how, in London, PM10 daily limit values were
being exceeded. King's researchers have also compiled several reports for
the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). For
instance, in 2009 they produced a report on `Air pollution and emissions trends in London' that "summarises detailed
and comprehensive assessment of trends in emissions and concentrations of
NOX and PM in London". They also produced a review of air quality modelling that "identifies specific policy needs for
the use of models and evaluates each model in turn in terms of the
scientific content and credibility of the models, their ease of use and
transparency and their fitness for purpose in delivering DEFRA's needs. Many UK cities are now investigating LEZs with 15 local authorities being
allocated central government funds to develop schemes similar to the
London LEZ. King's researchers are members of the Committee on the Medical
Effects of Air Pollutants, the expert advisory group of the Department of
Health in the UK for which Kelly is Chair; Quantification of air pollution
health effects, a sub-group of COMEAP; and the Air Quality Expert Group,
the DEFRA advisory group.

King's scientists provide expert advice to international agencies
Professor Kelly and colleagues played significant roles in the air
quality review process initiated by the WHO in 2005, 2010 and again in
2012. Members of King's staff are also members of influential national and
international scientific panels including: UN Economic Commission for
Europe Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution; and the US
Health Effects Institute investigation into the Health Effects of Traffic
pollution.

King's research informs similar interventions throughout Europe
Since the inception of the LEZ, King's has contributed innovative
analysis of pollution concentrations as part of our ongoing assessment of
the impacts of the LEZ on air quality. This work has been of benefit to
the UK, and other Governments around the globe, as they contemplate
measures to reduce traffic pollution in increasingly congested urban
areas. The LEZ was designed to move London closer to achieving national
and EU air quality objectives. The use of traffic intervention schemes to
achieve an improvement in air quality is now widespread. More than 200
cities in 13 European countries have introduced LEZ's and international teams are
following King's lead in assessing their potential health benefit.