TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of route choice and period of the day on cyclists' exposure to black carbon in London, Rotterdam and São Paulo
AU - Brand, Veronika Sassen
AU - Kumar, Prashant
AU - Damascena, Aline Santos
AU - Pritchard, John P.
AU - Geurs, Karst T.
AU - De Fatima Andrade, Maria
N1 - Funding Information:
This work has been carried out under the framework of FAPESP-SPRINT funded project PEDALS (Particles and Black Carbon Exposure to London and São Paulo Bike-Lane Users). We also acknowledge the support received through the ASTRID (Accessibility, Social justice and Transport emission Impacts of transit-oriented Development) project that was jointly funded by the ESRC (UK; grant number ES/N011481/1), NWO (Netherlands; project number: 485-14-038) and FAPESP (Brazil; grant number: 2015/50128-9). Prashant Kumar and Maria de Fatima Andrade also acknowledge the support received through FAPESP funded project NOTS (Novel high-resolution spatial mapping of health and climate emissions from urban transport in Sao Paulo megacity) as well as the Research England funding under the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) programme for the Clean Air Engineering for Cities (CArE-Cities) project. The authors thank the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) researchers, Arvind Tiwari, KV Abhijith, Ashish Sharma, Fawaz Audu, Ioar Rivas, Jeetendra Sahani, Sachit Mahajan, and Janaina Antonino Pinto; Linda Cervellati from the University of Bologna; Rosana Astolfo, Prof. Marcia Akemi, Luis Mendes, Natannael Almeida, Angel Vara-Vela, Arthur Amador, Natália Crespo, Enzo Pinheiro, Jeová Ramos Júnior, and Débora Pacheco from the University of São Paulo, for their help during the fieldwork. Figures having maps are prepared using the copyrighted OpenStreetMap that is available from https://www.openstreetmap.org.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Cyclists are exposed to direct traffic emissions due to their proximity to on-road vehicles. Several studies associate black carbon (BC) exposure with both mortality and morbidity caused by cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. We did a comparative assessment of cyclists' exposure to BC in three cities: London, Rotterdam and São Paulo. We measured personal exposure to BC during the peak and off-peak hours in all three cities using the same instrument. Three origin-destination (O-D) pairs, each with two routes, for a total of six routes, were chosen in each city. The first route of each O-D pair was along busy major roads and the other perceived to be clean passing close to green/blue/quiet areas. This work brings together results from three different Latin American and European cities, with an aim to understand the BC exposure variabilities while cycling during peak and off-peak hours, identify main pollution hotspots resulting in enhanced exposure and associate the measured concentrations with proximity to green areas and waterways. BC concentrations were higher duringthe morning-peak hours compared with evening-peak hours in Rotterdam and São Paulo. London showed an opposite trend, with higher concentrations during evening hours. In most cases, the cyclists using the alternative route were found to be less exposed to BC in London and São Paulo. In Rotterdam, the differences in absolute concentrations between main and alternate routes were modest. Each city is different but the common features among all were that the exposure is related to route choice, a period of the day and proximity with the mobilesources. These findings have implications in terms of considering the pollutants exposure when establishing new cycle routes.
AB - Cyclists are exposed to direct traffic emissions due to their proximity to on-road vehicles. Several studies associate black carbon (BC) exposure with both mortality and morbidity caused by cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. We did a comparative assessment of cyclists' exposure to BC in three cities: London, Rotterdam and São Paulo. We measured personal exposure to BC during the peak and off-peak hours in all three cities using the same instrument. Three origin-destination (O-D) pairs, each with two routes, for a total of six routes, were chosen in each city. The first route of each O-D pair was along busy major roads and the other perceived to be clean passing close to green/blue/quiet areas. This work brings together results from three different Latin American and European cities, with an aim to understand the BC exposure variabilities while cycling during peak and off-peak hours, identify main pollution hotspots resulting in enhanced exposure and associate the measured concentrations with proximity to green areas and waterways. BC concentrations were higher duringthe morning-peak hours compared with evening-peak hours in Rotterdam and São Paulo. London showed an opposite trend, with higher concentrations during evening hours. In most cases, the cyclists using the alternative route were found to be less exposed to BC in London and São Paulo. In Rotterdam, the differences in absolute concentrations between main and alternate routes were modest. Each city is different but the common features among all were that the exposure is related to route choice, a period of the day and proximity with the mobilesources. These findings have implications in terms of considering the pollutants exposure when establishing new cycle routes.
KW - 22/4 OA procedure
U2 - 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2019.03.007
DO - 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2019.03.007
M3 - Article
SN - 0966-6923
VL - 76
SP - 153
EP - 165
JO - Journal of transport geography
JF - Journal of transport geography
ER -
