Impact case study database

King’s air quality research had impact from 2013 to 2020 by contributing to the design, implementation and evaluation of traffic control schemes in the UK, including impact on air quality and health outcomes, and providing scientific advice on air quality to inform the development of schemes internationally. The ultimate beneficiaries from the research include the populations of urban centres world-wide, especially the most heavily exposed in deprived areas, that have directly benefited from control measures directed at reducing traffic-related air pollution. King’s research has directly benefitted and influenced stakeholders in transport policy nationally and internationally including politicians, policy-makers, planners and managers, as well as service users.

King’s research influences air quality strategy in London. In 2018, the Mayor of London published the London Environment Strategy (LES) (A), setting out details of policy actions to improve the city’s air quality and the health and wellbeing of its residents. King’s research was used in the LES to assess the impacts on pollutant concentrations of a range of policies including the new Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) (B). King’s research calculated both the traffic emissions and air quality predictions of policy interventions from 2013 onwards and to future years to 2030. The LES includes plans for the London Taxi and Bus strategies, the Central London ULEZ, the London Wide HGV/Bus strategy, and the Inner London ULEZ zone for the area bounded by the North and South Circular roads (A).

The underpinning research from King’s led to the ambitious ULEZ. As with the preceding LEZ, King’s LAQN provided data to underpin the strategy through the monitoring of air quality and emissions. The LAQN index, developed by King’s, is used throughout the London Mayor’s report to ‘provide a picture of the overall improvements in London’s air quality’ (A.1). The London Air Quality Network web-site not only informs Transport for London, but can be used by the public to find interactive street-level current pollution maps; incidences of high pollution episodes; interactive graphs by London borough and yearly reports. This innovative research, linked to policy, has informed the development of similar schemes throughout the UK, such as the Breathe London network, which can be used to highlight potential air quality hotspots, allowing solutions to be put in place as quickly as possible (C.1). Internationally this work was propagated via the C40 Cities new Air Quality Network launched in 2018. It focused on helping cities develop and implement air quality policies and solutions to reduce air pollution, improve public health and meet climate goals (C.2). The team running the LAQN was assigned ‘essential worker’ status during the COVID-19 pandemic and maintained the flow of essential information to the public and government agencies (D.1). This service was acknowledged in writing by the Mayor of London (D.2): “The data collected through the air quality monitoring network is extremely important to the ongoing evaluation of risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially true in light of the emerging evidence of an association between exposure to air pollution and the most severe effects of COVID-19. The research your team submitted as part of the Air Quality Expert Group call for evidence shed valuable light on the immediate impact of the lockdown on London’s air quality (…) Over the years you and the team have contributed hugely to our understanding of the impact air pollution is having on the health of Londoners”.

King’s academics provide expert advice and advocacy to UK policy-makers. This work was extended in 2016, in collaboration with Policy Exchange, a leading think tank based in London. It resulted in two reports on air pollution in London that considered the moral, legal and economic case for doing more to tackle air pollution. The reports showed that despite the growing focus on the issue in recent years, current and planned policies are unlikely to deliver compliance with air quality limits in London until at least 2025. The reports outline the health and economic benefits of taking further steps to tackle air pollution (E.1, E.2). The work tested additional policy scenarios policies with European, UK and London-wide scales. Model predictions covered future years (2020/5) and included testing the impacts of tightening enforcement of Euro 6 vehicle emission controls, reversing the diesel/petrol mix, reducing diesel numbers, increasing diesel taxation, introducing a diesel scrappage scheme, applying the ULEZ scheme including the taxi and bus strategies, encouraging electric and hybrid electric vehicles, tackling high emitting boilers and reducing the impact of new Combined Heat and Power (CHP) boilers. (E. 2) A ten-point plan was produced and was used as evidence at the London Assembly Environment Committee on compliance with legal air quality standards (E.3). The Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) commissioned a similar policy assessment for the whole of the UK forward to 2050, which informed the UK Government’s Clean Air Strategy 2018 (F), including climate change policies. A key recommendation introduced by this strategy was a new commitment to progressively cut public exposure to particulate matter pollution, halving the population living in areas with concentrations of fine particulate matter above WHO guideline levels (10 μg/m3) by 2025 (F, Chapter 2, p.4).

In 2019, Professor Martin Williams was appointed as the UK’s first Clean Air Champion (shared role) to spearhead the Clean Air Programme, which aims to develop solutions towards a cleaner economy (G). Professor Frank Kelly gave expert advice to the European Respiratory Society Environment & Health Committee in 2019 (H.1) and the Future Cites Catapult in 2018 (H.2), as well as evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee in 2016 (I). King’s researchers have also compiled reports for DEFRA and other Government agencies including a review of air quality modelling (J). Multiple local authorities in the UK are now planning and implementing LEZs including Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Bradford, Greater Manchester, Leicester, Newcastle, Oxford, Portsmouth and Sheffield. This activity is also reflected by King’s researchers’ memberships of several important and influential government groups, such as the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, the expert advisory group of the Department of Health in the UK for which Kelly has been Chair (2011-2020) (K.1); Quantification of air pollution health effects, a sub-group of COMEAP (2017-2020) (K.2); and the Air Quality Expert Group, the DEFRA advisory group (2013-2020) (K.3).

King’s scientists provide expert advice to international agencies. King’s expertise in air quality management and linking air pollution with health outcomes is widely recognised on the International stage. King’s collaborated with international researchers to provide expert advice to policy makers in Paris, Beijing and Hong Kong (L). King’s researchers have played significant roles in the air quality review process initiated by the WHO; in 2015, Professor Williams gave expert advice and co-chaired a WHO expert consultation meeting on the future update of the WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines (M). This eventually led him to co-chair the WHO Air Quality Guidelines Development Group in 2018 (M). The consultation identified 32 ambient air pollutants that can pose health hazards to human populations and should be carefully followed by WHO and monitored by countries worldwide, but there was consensus that immediate priorities were particulate matter (PM), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and carbon monoxide (CO)’ (M, pp27-8). King’s staff were also members and consultants of influential national and international scientific panels including: the UN Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (2018) (N.1); and the US Health Effects Institute Review Board and their investigation into the Health Effects of Traffic pollution (2018) (N.2).