Assessing impacts of urban freight measures on air toxic emissions in Inner Sydney

A study to investigate the sensitivity of urban freight patterns to various greenhouse gas abatement policy measures has recently been completed. Although the Sydney urban area was used as the focus of the case study, the estimated impacts of changing freight vehicle operations across the urban area, via vehicle technologies, infrastructure improvements, logistic and land use changes are expected to be generally applicable to Australian cities and potentially applicable to cities elsewhere. This paper presents the results of a case study analysing and evaluating the impacts of a selection of greenhouse gas abatement measures on the emission and dispersion of benzene and 1,3-butadiene in Inner Sydney, the heart of the Sydney metropolitan area. The results discussed cover three demonstration days in February 1997, and are indicative of the type of policy measures that will produce the required reduction in pollution concentration for the air toxics. The results indicate that there were significant differences in the relative impacts of policies for different parts of the urban area. This is a useful finding since it suggests that specific policies could be targeted to give better air quality in places with significant health concerns such as high asthma, or areas with a greater proportion of the population vulnerable to respiratory conditions, such as children or the elderly.