Effectiveness of vehicle-free zone in reducing air pollution

• DOI: 10.1007/s13762-020-02977-6
• Publication Date: 2020-10-14T10:03:19Z
• Authors: J. Khadgi; R. Thapa; T. Prasai Joshi; R. Maskey Byanju
• Keywords: 13. Climate action; 11. Sustainability; 01 natural sciences; 6. Clean water; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

This study focuses on the effectiveness of vehicle-free zone in terms of air quality. Particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO) were measured at V1, a core area of vehicle-free zone for three seasons (post-monsoon, winter, and pre-monsoon), seven days each for 12-h time period. PM and CO concentrations were higher in the morning hours, considerably lower during the afternoon and increased during the evening. PM2.5, PM10, and CO were found to be 28.49 ± 15.10 µg/m3, 83.78 ± 46.24 µg/m3, 4.53 ± 3.08 mg/m3 in post-monsoon; 62.49 ± 34.37 µg/m3, 89.28 ± 34.91 µg/m3, and 7.9 ± 4.76 mg/m3 in winter; 27.41 ± 11.16 µg/m3, 42.12 ± 15.35 µg/m3, and 5.27 ± 0.56 mg/m3 in pre-monsoon, respectively. PM was found to be lower in the vehicle-free zone than the reference stations (R1 and R2) as well as before the vehicle-free intervention. However, there were occasional mornings and evenings with higher emissions as compared to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards guidelines. This means that background pollution and atmospheric conditions might have a greater impact on the degradation of the ambient air quality to which the population is exposed chronically. Despite these results, the decrease in particulate matter concentration also suggests that these regulations could be one of the effective measures to control air pollution.