Imperial’s Ashley Bijster and Videalert’s Stuart Scott joined us at TRANSPORT Smart Class, Scotland 2019 recently and reminded us that three in ten child asthma cases in the UK are now caused by traffic pollution and that, according to a 2017 Defra & DfT report ( “Improving air quality in the UK”), poor air quality is estimated in 2012 to have had a total cost of up to £2.7 billion through its impact on productivity. They also made the point that, globally, air pollution has cut life expectancy by 1.67 years (in 2017, 92% of the world’s population lived in areas where PM 2.5 exceeds WHO guidelines for healthy air) and highlighted its significant contribution to diabetes.
Ashley and Stuart went on to demonstrate how the move towards managing air quality in UK towns and cities (including Scotland’s four biggest cities – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee – with commitments to LEZ schemes) needn’t be a giant leap into the unknown but can be achieved by adding clean air zone rules and differentiated pricing for behaviour change to proven technologies, such as smart parking and emission permits, digital ANPR and AQ sensors, to make a very real difference to citizens’ quality of life.
Access the presentation slides by completing the short download form at the bottom of this page.
We look forward to Imperial and Videalert’s next presentation at TRANSPORT Smart Class, London & South East England 2019, which we’re hosting at Browns Courtrooms, Covent Garden, on Wednesday October 9th! For further insights, check out this blog contribution to the Smart Classes Knowledge Base, co-authored by Ashley and Videalert’s Tim Daniels: “Collaboration Delivers Positive Clean Air Outcomes and Enables Authorities to Take Future Regulations in Their Stride”.
