Britain's air pollution curbs are failing

Latest air pollution concerns signal more stringent targets

Transport is the lifeblood of logistics but along its arteries from motorways to minor roads its emissions are a growing health concern which has left the British Government on the backfoot after years of inaction. Belatedly, the Government is waking up to the problem, which public health officials are only now recommending that local councils take action, too

The need for firmer action and the abandonment of old air pollution reduction targets has been highlighted by a new report from Public Health England, (PHE) the official public health agency, and other new research. London, for example, compared poorly with Paris. Since 2010 levels of fine particulates from London traffic have dropped only a quarter the rate of Paris. The latest research from Kings college, London, points the finger at the 11% year-on-year rise since 2010 in the use of motorcycles like Deliveroo, whose exhausts tests are much weaker than those for cars and lorries. "This comes as a big surprise," says Dr Gary Fuller, Kings College. "If we just carry on in the same way it will take many years to reach the legal limits," he said. "Progress is very slow." Support for this claim is that the level of fine particulates from traffic between 2010 and 2016 fell an average of  2.6% a year but more recently appears to be tailing off.

The implications for logistics transport operators are profound and point to an accelerated adoption of various sticks and carrots to hasten the reduction of air pollution largely caused by diesel and petrol vehicles. But apart from the more obvious moves like switching from fossil-fuelled vehicles to all-electric, the logistics industry could help in other ways, especially in relation to online shopping and lack of joined up thinking in big cities like London where typically food outlets could receive up to 13 deliveries a day. Consolidation warehouses in cities could relieve that problem.

At the dawn of online shopping it was thought that there would be a net environmental benefit because one delivery van could deliver dozens of shop orders in a small area and thus replace dozens of separate car journeys to do the weekly shopping. It would also have meant significantly fewer road accidents. It has not worked out quite like that because many shoppers now order single items or, for example, may order six dresses of the same design but in different colours so that they can choose which one and return the other five. The online suppliers have made a rod for their own backs because the high cost of returns means that they are making very little money.

Prompt, firm action to limit air pollution does work and the transport players recognise the need for change but are they ready to meet the hastening of existing measures and new ones to slash the estimated 40,000 premature deaths from air pollution in Britain every year and billions of pounds in medical care?

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