Emits LIFE95 ENV/UK/000595 - Environmental Monitoring of Integrated Transport Strategies
Overview
Background & policy context:
Oxford suffered for many years from increasing traffic volumes and deteriorating air quality. In response to this problem, the County Council and City Council developed the Oxford Transport Strategy (OTS), a package of approximately 90 schemes costing £18m, to change how people move around the city to more sustainable patterns. Implementation of the OTS began in 1993. However, the OTS has proven to be a controversial initiative, facing opposition from various groups including car users and city centre businesses. To test a range of hypotheses which suggested that the Strategy would have a positive impact on traffic patterns, air quality, human health, buildings and the local economy, it was proposed that a comprehensive range of monitoring activities should be undertaken, before, during and after OTS implementation. EMITS has been designed to monitor the effects of introducing traffic restraint measures in Oxford. The Oxford Transport Strategy (OTS) is a comprehensive package of around 90 individual schemes and measures being implemented on an incremental basis over a seven year period. The strategy is designed to lead to significant reductions in traffic levels and improvements in the environmental conditions in the centre of Oxford. EMITS is an innovative multi-disciplinary environmental monitoring progamme which will assess the broad effects of implementing OTS. EMITS' objectives are to provide a comprehensive before and after comparison assessment of the transport, environmental, public health and economic effects of the implementation of the OTS and to assign financial values to the effects of OTS, including the environmental and public health effects of the changes in traffic levels. It is planned to make known to an international audience, the processess, results and findings of the EMITS project.
Objectives:
The EMITS project objectives were to:
- Provide a comprehensive before and after comparative assessment of the transport, environmental public health and economic effects of the implementation of the Oxford Transport Strategy
- Assign financial values to the effects of the OTS including environmental and public health effects of the changes in traffic levels
- Make known to an international audience the processes, results and findings of the EMITS project.
The EMITS project was designed to evaluate the following hypotheses:
- the implementation of specific traffic management measures and associated instruments (the OTS) had led to a reduction in traffic, as identified during the duration of the EMITS project (1/3/1996 to 1/7/2002). The reduction should have been evident both: in certain streets and as an overall measure of traffic in the city centre.
- That it was possible to show: a lower level of air pollution in the streets designated for traffic reduction, and as a result identify; a reduction in respiratory and cardio-vascular symptoms and; a reduced rate of decay in the built environment due to the reduction in the pollution.
- At the same time, the OTS: should have resulted in the overall accessibility of Oxford City Centre being maintained or enhanced (although not necessarily for private car users); should not have caused an unacceptable increase in traffic, traffic related problems, and in particular, air pollution in other streets due to traffic redistribution effects, and should have resulted in the relative economic vitality of Oxford compared with other centres being as a minimum preserved and ideally enhanced (after allowing for extraneous changes in the local and national economy).
The expected results included analyses of data showing links between the OTS and changes in the key indicator thematics of: traffic and transport; air quality; public health; buildings and structures and economic vitality and to prove/disprove the hypothesis presented above and which the project was designed to test.
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