For three years, the VVD in Rotterdam wants a report on the effects of the environmental zone in the port city on a monthly basis. The VVD has submitted that request to the College in Rotterdam. In this way the liberals want to closely monitor the development of soot and fine dust in the city. They also want to know how many cars drive into the environmental zone, broken down by gasoline, diesel and LPG
The environmental zone in Rotterdam came into effect on 1 January 2016, with the aim of keeping polluting cars out of the city center of Rotterdam. Diesel cars from before 2001 and petrol cars from before 1992 are no longer allowed in the relevant environmental zone.
40 percent fewer emissions
The college in Rotterdam wants soot emissions from 2018% to decrease in 40 '. According to councilor Jan Willem Verheij, more than half of all road traffic must disappear from the city. According to the current environmental zone rules, only five to six percent of the Rotterdam fleet is denied access to the city.
Reporting
To be able to test whether the environmental zone would actually be effective, the VVD wants a monthly report. This should include, among other things, how many cars are driving in Rotterdam every month and how much they emit. The report should also state how many warnings and fines have been paid to cars that cross the zone.
265 prohibited cars per day
According to Metronieuws, 265 cars drive into the Rotterdam environmental zone every day that are not allowed there. If the municipality of Rotterdam had started issuing fines as of January 1, the city treasury would be covered with a small 3 ton. Incidentally, fines are only issued on 1 May to motorists who enter the environmental zone with a "forbidden" vehicle. Various Rotterdammers have shown that they do not want to wait for that date. It was announced around the turn of the year that more than 6.500 applications for the scrapping scheme were submitted and that 10.000 "polluting" cars had disappeared from the city center of Rotterdam.
Reporting first step towards demonstrating utility and necessity
Providing monthly reporting on the effects of the environmental zone seems to be a good starting point. These can only be properly measured when these effects are not influenced by other "polluting" aspects. Despite this, the VVD in Rotterdam wants fixed air measurement points to determine the concentrations of several pollutants and to compare the number of "prohibited cars" on a daily and monthly basis against the total traffic supply that enters the environmental zone. The liberals in Rotterdam at least want to follow the developments of polluting emissions during 36 months. They send a good signal with this, because in this way it is mainly possible to substantiate thoroughly whether an environmental zone makes sense in both the short and long term, while policy can be adjusted in the meantime based on reports.
A “polluting” diesel is replaced by a new diesel, eg a Mercedes C220, which according to TNO turns out to be 20 times more polluting in practice than on paper… In short, I am curious about the results of this monthly report. I would also like to see a practical test between a 20 year old diesel and a new, “clean” diesel.