FOI - Air pollution data [Jun 2023]

Your request

Nowhere in London currently meets the World Health Organization's (WHO) guidelines for healthy air. 

1. Where in the world meets these guidelines?
2. When were these guidelines introduced?
3. Forecasted not to be the case until the end of the decade so again based on forecasts and no evidence. How is this evidence when it's clearly a forecast?
4. If the link is based on 'air quality' in 2019, surely the lockdowns would have improved this so why are you basing it on 2019 when it's clearly not the case today?
5. Why are you trying to charge drivers for 'air quality' when the London Underground is in excess of ten times the 'polluting air' as car drivers?

Our response

1. We do not hold air pollution data for places outside of London so are not able to answer the question regarding where in the world meets the WHO Guidelines. 
2. The WHO updated their air quality guidelines in 2021.
3. Forecasts use future years’ data from the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory which provides London-wide pollution concentrations for the years 2025 and 2030. The data is modelled based upon a multitude of inputs including measured air quality concentrations, emissions and traffic data as well as projections based upon previous trends, modelled impacts of policies and expected fleet turnover. The data provides the most comprehensive estimate of future pollution concentrations available for London. The data is available here.
4. The link provided in the previous response is to the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory 2019, which has a base year for 2019 but contains air pollution concentrations and emissions data for 2013, 2016 and 2019 along with forecasts for 2025 and 2030. 2019 was used as the base year as the most recent year for which all the necessary input data was available at the time of developing the database. The impacts of the lockdowns on pollution concentrations and emissions have been considered through the projections used in estimating the future years data.
5. Road transport is the largest source of air pollution in London contributing to elevated ambient pollution levels to which people are regularly exposed. Road transport emitted 44 per cent of NOx emissions and 30 per cent of PM2.5 emissions in London in 2019. This is why the Mayor is focussed on reducing emissions from this source with policies such as the Ultra Low Emission Zone and its upcoming expansion. In regard to pollution on the London Underground, travel on the Underground provides a reduction in exposure to harmful surface traffic pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and diesel exhaust emissions, which are not produced inside the Underground network. While dust matter in the urban environment is made up of some components known to be harmful to health, Tube dust is predominantly made up of iron oxide. Iron oxide is not currently known to be a carcinogen or have other significant health impacts. 
   London Underground operates well within the Health and Safety Executive specified limits and regularly monitors dust and air particles in the network to ensure compliance and we are working to further reduce the level of dust on our network including a number of innovative cleaning initiatives to identify effective methods for reducing dust particles.

If you have any further questions relating to this matter, please contact us, quoting 
reference MGLA130623-9685.