Air quality - reducing emissions from individual vehicles

• Overview of available cleaner vehicle engines, technologies and fuels
• Driving style

Newly manufactured road vehicles and the fuels they run on are becoming progressively cleaner, mainly due to EU regulation. However, cleaner vehicles are not replacing the older vehicles fast enough to achieve the air quality targets. More information on cleaner vehicles can be found in the Mayor's Air Quality Strategy.

Faster adoption of cleaner road vehicles is where the greatest opportunity for reducing emissions lies. This is therefore the focus of the Mayor's Air Quality Strategy. The Mayor aims to accelerate the introduction of cleaner road vehicles and to take advantage of technological progress to reduce emissions of vehicles already on the road by:

• in the short term, targeting emissions reductions from the most polluting vehicles (mainly heavier diesel vehicles, such as buses, coaches, goods vehicles, waste vehicles and taxis)
• increasing the take-up of newer, cleaner vehicles and technologies
• increasing the take-up of cleaner fuels
• implementing a low emission zone in London, which would exclude the most polluting vehicles from London's streets
• in the long term, increasing the take-up of 'zero emission' forms of transport (such as hydrogen fuel cell vehicles).

Cleaner road vehicles

Cleaner road vehicles, ie cleaner engines, technologies and fuels include:

• the latest 'conventional' vehicles with petrol and diesel engines
• hybrid vehicles (which make efficient use of conventional fuels with an electric motor)
• cleaner conventional fuels such as lower sulphur fuels
• retrofitted technologies for vehicles already on the road (such as oxidation catalysts, particulate traps, selective catalytic reduction, exhaust gas recirculation or replacement engines)
• alternatively-fuelled vehicles (such as gas or electric)

These cleaner engines, technologies and fuels are already widely available. The main barrier to reducing emissions using cleaner road vehicles is the rate at which they are being adopted.

There is no single best approach for adopting cleaner technologies. The Mayor's Air Quality Strategy advocates selecting the most appropriate option on a case-by-case basis. For some operators, this may mean buying a newer, cleaner vehicle, while for others, retrofitting equipment onto existing vehicles or changing the fuel used may be more appropriate. Where none of these options is possible for vehicle operators or owners, emissions reductions can still be made by improved vehicle maintenance and driving style (which will also improve road safety and fuel efficiency).

The Mayor's Air Quality Strategy proposes to encourage people to take up cleaner vehicles by:

• implementing a low emission zone in London
• providing incentives for the purchase of cleaner road vehicles, for example, a 100 per cent discount from central London congestion charging for the very cleanest alternatively-fuelled vehicles
• leading by example, ie cleaning the fleets used by or on behalf of the GLA group (consisting of the core GLA, Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police Authority, the London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority and the London Development Agency) and setting out proposals for London boroughs, businesses and government agencies to do the same
• using the Mayor's planning and other powers to enable the expansion of refuelling infrastructure for alternative fuels
• promoting the advantages of cleaner road vehicles and fuels.

Vehicles have been made progressively cleaner through EU regulation, of both fuels and vehicles. The regulation of vehicle emissions is done through 'Euro Standards' and the requirement of cleaner fuel regulations. 'Euro Standards' set maximum vehicle emissions. The business section refers to these standards, and box 3 below explains them further.

'Euro Standards'

The European Union sets standards restricting emission levels of newly manufactured vehicles, known as Euro Standards. The Euro I Standard was phased in from 1992. Each later Euro Standard has set tighter emissions limits. Euro II Standards were introduced from 1996 and Euro III Standard from 2000. Euro IV Standard will be brought in from 2006 and Euro V Standards from 2011. The latest standards for new vehicles (as of 2004) are Euro III Standards, but some vehicles which meet Euro IV and Euro V standards are already available.

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