Statistical Modeling of the Early-Stage Impact of a New Traffic Policy in Milan, Italy

Maranzano, Paolo; Fassò, Alessandro; Pelagatti, Matteo; Mudelsee, Manfred

doi:10.3390/ijerph17031088

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Future work will extend the analysis to all the regions in the Po Valley in order to understand the local differences and point out which are the relevant factors which concur in the dynamics of air pollution in the early months of 2020. In this regard also the methodological approach could be extended to include, for example, a more complex structure for the level, the slope and the seasonality as done in Maranzano et al (2020) for assessing the impact of a new traffic policy in Milano, Italy. If the entire Po Valley is considered, a spatio-temporal modelling approach, similar to the one proposed in Cameletti et al (2011) , is also an option in order to take also into account the spatial correlation between time series.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Corona Virus Lockdown on Air Pollution: Evidence from the City of Brescia in Lombardia Region (Italy)

Cameletti

2020

Atmospheric Environment

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After the outbreak of Corona virus pandemic in Italy, the government has taken extraordinary measures, including a national lockdown, to prevent the spread of the infection. This extraordinary situation has led to a reduction in air pollution levels measured in the whole Po Valley, usually known as one of the most polluted areas in Europe in terms of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO ) concentrations. The main aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the lockdown on the air quality improvement. In particular, an interrupted time series modelling approach is employed to test if a significant change in the level and the trend of the pollutant time series has occurred after the lockdown measure. The case study regards the city of Brescia (Northern Italy) and focuses on the comparison of the period before (January 1st–March 7th, 2020) and after (March 8th–March 27th, 2020) the lockdown. By adjusting for meteorology and Sunday effect, the results show that a significant change in air quality occurring in the post intervention period was observed only for a single NO station located in a heavy traffic zone. In particular, the estimate of the time series slope, i.e. the expected change in the concentration associated with a time unit increase, decreases from -0.25 to -1.67 after the lockdown. For the remaining stations, no significant change was found in the concentration time series when comparing the two periods. This confirms the complexity of air pollutant concentration dynamics for the considered area, which is not merely related to emission sources but depends also on other factors as, for example, (micro and macro) meteorological conditions and the chemical and physical processes in the atmosphere, which are all independent of the lockdown measure.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Corona Virus Lockdown on Air Pollution: Evidence from the City of Brescia in Lombardia Region (Italy)

Cameletti

2020

Atmospheric Environment

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“…The use of air quality data from local or regional monitoring networks is a longstanding practice in the literature [8][9][10][11]51]. The quality of sampling instrumentation and the design of the air quality monitoring network must comply with international standards and are guaranteed by the institutions responsible for their management.…”

Section: Issues Concerning Air Quality Monitoring Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Data from the open data of ARPA Lombardia are the main source used by researchers to highlight the local effects of public policies for environmental protection or to establish the ongoing atmospheric trends in the area. For example, see the studies of [50,51] concerning the effects of traffic restricted zones in Milan on the concentrations of air pollutants, in particular nitrogen oxides. Considering the recent events caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, first of all the travel ban between municipalities and from cities, a crucial issue is the impact of restrictions on air quality in the Po Valley.…”

Section: Emission Inventory For Lombardymentioning

confidence: 99%

Air Quality in Lombardy, Italy: An Overview of the Environmental Monitoring System of ARPA Lombardia

Maranzano

2022

Earth

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In this paper, we describe the structure and the features of the air quality and meteorological monitoring system adopted in the Lombardy region in Northern Italy. We are interested in describing which data the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPA Lombardia) must collect, how this process takes place and how they are disseminated to the public for institutional communication and research purposes. ARPA monitors the atmospheric conditions through a dense ground monitoring network composed mainly by permanent stations, but also by mobile samplers. We describe in a detailed fashion the structure of the network: how many stations the network consists of, their locations, which pollutants and weather events are monitored and with what frequency. Our main objective is to present to an international audience the case study of ARPA Lombardia and the main available public data, explicitly stating the sources of information and how to find them, and encouraging international researchers to deal with the subject. In spite of the significant and extensive efforts made to counteract the phenomenon of air pollution, the air quality recorded in the region is very poor, and the local authorities are struggling to comply with international regulations on the concentration of pollutants in the air, making Lombardy a relevant international case. In addition, we present in a synthetic and descriptive way, without any modeling ambition, some data observed in the last years in Lombardy regarding meteorology and the main pollutants (oxides and particulate matters). The empirical descriptive results have been obtained by analyzing sample data provided by ARPA Lombardia through the same sources described in the sections dedicated to the Agency. From the graphical analysis, it is noticeable that at aggregate (regional) level, the concentrations are affected by significant decreasing trends, but at a rather contained speed. This is particularly true for the concentrations of oxides (NO2 and NOX) in urban and industrial areas. However, particulate matters and ozone show a high persistence in the average concentrations, interrupted only by the alternation of climatic seasons. The data also show that the meteorology of the region does not seem favorable for the improvement of air quality, as the region is characterized by low precipitation, and wind almost everywhere is not very intense. This situation could be induced by the unfavorable geography of the area, which prevents adequate air recycling and facilitates the stagnation of pollutants. We suggest that any public policy intervention aimed at improving the air quality situation in the region should take into account this empirical evidence in the impact assessment phase.

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“…There are only two cases where data were employed in the implementation process, one of which is from big data. Maranzano et al (2020) applied traffic data combined with GIS data to assess the early-stage impact of an extended limited traffic zone based on a developed traffic model, which provides in time insights for policymakers to adjust the policy according to the evaluation. GIS data are another type of data which have been applied in implementation step to explore the optimized regulation methods for efficient mobility regulation improvement (Wang et al, 2014).…”

Section: Policy-related Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of data in sustainability assessment of urban mobility policies

Liu

Dijk

2022

Data & Policy

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Data have played a role in urban mobility policy planning for decades, especially in forecasting demand, but much less in policy evaluations and assessments. The surge in availability and openness of (big) data in the last decade seems to provide new opportunities to meet demand for evidence-based policymaking. This paper reviews how different types of data are employed in assessments published in academic journals by analyzing 74 cases. Our review finds that (a) academic literature has currently provided limited insight in new data developments in policy practice; (b) research shows that the new types of big data provide new opportunities for evidence-based policy-making; however, (c) they cannot replace traditional data usage (surveys and statistics). Instead, combining big data with survey and Geographic Information System data in ex-ante assessments, as well as in developing decision support tools, is found to be the most effective. This could help policymakers not only to get much more insight from policy assessments, but also to help avoid the limitations of one certain type of data. Finally, current research projects are rather data supply-driven. Future research should engage with policy practitioners to reveal best practices, constraints, and potential of more demand-driven data use in mobility policy assessments in practice.

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Statistical Modeling of the Early-Stage Impact of a New Traffic Policy in Milan, Italy

Cited by 14 publications

References 38 publications

The Effect of Corona Virus Lockdown on Air Pollution: Evidence from the City of Brescia in Lombardia Region (Italy)

The Effect of Corona Virus Lockdown on Air Pollution: Evidence from the City of Brescia in Lombardia Region (Italy)

Air Quality in Lombardy, Italy: An Overview of the Environmental Monitoring System of ARPA Lombardia

The role of data in sustainability assessment of urban mobility policies

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