A free webinar by Environmental Association Za Zemiata with Oliver Lord from the Clean Cities Campaign in London. He will share experience and insights from the work of the LEZ in the English capital, comment on the need for careful monitoring to qualitatively assess the impact of the measure, and outline the opportunities to improve implementation. The event is in English with translation into Bulgarian.
O hello and welcome I will talk to Bulgarian in the beginning so maybe you should switch to the English Channel so that you can hear the interpret thank you for being with us thank you for uh answering this invitation uh today as you know the
Topic will be the uh ultra zero low very low emissions Zone which was launched in uh sopia um this year and um it it is already implemented in London for quite some time so we are going to be talking about uh what are the uh reactions and responses of the institutions and the
Public sector what are the lessons learned from London which could be uh useful uh for sopia especially uh how we do monitoring and evaluation of the uh Zone and how we can take useful um uh knowledge um and conclusions about how we can improve the ultra low emission Zone in sofhia I
Don't know if uh many of you have already encounted this I am personally not using a motor motor car in downtown Sofia but I'm instead using public transportation or a bike uh but maybe we can share some experiences direct experiences from how this ultra low emission Zone Works uh and what's
Happening with it um but um I think this is uh uh very normal still to not have uh a lot of feedback because it's been effective uh just for a very a while and it will be uh operating until end of February 2024 we'll see what the responses are and uh
How the effect of its impact over those three months will be evaluated and uh since December 1st low Transportation emissions area would be would become effective and sofel will Implement Inn heating um uh Ultra emission area in um six years uh heating with solid fuel uh such
As for example using wooden materials or uh coal would be forbidden so far we have some uh restrictions in our ultra low emissions area which limits certain Vehicles we're going to be talking about it today uh only I already know in campaign that uh our organization is
Also active in I uh heard his presentation about a year ago He was discussing about how we are evaluating the ultra low emissions area um in London and how it could be improved and I thought that it's going to be a great idea to invite Mr Oliver Lord to share
With us uh what has already been happening in London OE uh welcome if you will please say a few words about yourself maybe what how I presented you was very uh short very brief so thank you thank you and you have the floor but before I give you the floor
Um anyone uh who uh is joining us today will be able to ask questions or make comments in the chat uh using the chat function you can ask questions in the Q&A session uh use the Q&A icon for this purpose then we are going to try and answer all of your questions please
Comment react respond ask uh your questions directly just raise your hand and you would have the option to speak share ask uh and comment and so without further Ado I would like to hear from oie you have the floor hello thank you for inviting me um from a slightly less polluted uh London
Uh appreciate your uh invitation uh yes I been uh campaigning and and also working on the other side of the fence in London uh from the public sector around the issue of clean air and also specifically the policy of ultra low emission Z for a while now so
I hope to be able to provide you with some insight and um answer any questions you have so I Pro uh great to the presentation for you that and then I'll just introduce our organization a little bit uh along the way so just bear with me whilst I get that
Ready okay here we go so firstly just to introduce Clean Cities campaign for those who don't know it it's uh a networked campaign across Europe that has been initiated by the NGO transport and environment and we're delighted to have Zara uh with us as a partner uh one of
More than 85 Partners now and we span across around 20 countries we go quite deep in a few of those countries and cities especially and I've listed those on the slide and that includes here uh in London and and also um I lead the campaign here in the UK we've also got a
Campaign up in Greater Manchester which is pretty much our second biggest city region and and they have certainly approached clean air and a slightly different approach to London the Clean Cities campaign low emission zones zero emission zones ultra low emission zones Are all uh part of a a suite of policies
Uh and and priorities that we are pushing as a campaign and that also includes how do we start to reallocate public space uh from polluting vehicles and so we have not just newer vehicles but we also have fewer vehicles on our streets and more space for people we're
Very keen to make sure that the we support people to uh get around cities more actively whether that's cycling or walking want to see much greater investment in public transport and and of course eventually get to the point where we're only really allowing zero emission vehicles to circulate uh in in
In our cities so these are the the four pillars that we kind of Base our campaign on and and as I say delighted to have Partners such as AIA to sign up to this excuse me if I'm not pronouncing that properly um so uh to drill into London's
Ultral low emission Zone a little bit it's been the Talk of the Town last year uh and rightly so uh and to start really with London's pollution problem uh which you'll be aware of and you know no doubt that we share very similar circumstances uh with sofhia um you know very high
Levels of historic Al and still very high levels of nitrogen dioxide concentrations as you can see on the left of the uh of the slide and and we've uh charted this or the mayor has charted this according to you know anything dark red and above is still breaching the EU ambient air quality
Directive which was meant to be met in 2010 at the latest they were very overdue and you can probably also see a big spludge on the left of the map of London and that it relates to our airport as well which is a huge issue
For for the City heo airport and on the right is a map around um particulate matter which is the other pollutant PM 2.5 of of great concern for us in the city and we are far above uh the latest World Health Organization guidelines there although I expect perhaps levels
Are much greater in uh Sophia we're very fortunate in London to have uh an extensive monitoring Network which really helps to inform uh campaigning here but also has helped to um raise awareness amongst the public as well and the accessib acceptability of some of these policies so this is a map
We pull together as Clean Cities campaign taking into account all the different types of monitoring so there's a huge sve of the fusion tubes really tiny test tubes uh which I understand are also being rolled out um thanks to uh people on this call with support from
The clean air fund and sofhia and and then we have a a slightly mediumsized monitoring Network and then the automatic monitors which are supposed to be cited in the right locations by the roadside although I understand there's some challenges uh in sfia as well around
That and a lot of this helps to inform the emissions inventry in London and we know that Road Transport is uh a big issue for us here and it's also a a uh an emission Source not only of huge concern but it's also something really very much under the mayor's power and of
Course when you're City level campaigning you you do need to be able to understand what power the mayor has and and what where we need the government to intervene and I touched on that in this presentation the ultra low emission Zone um has been around for some time as
Drager was saying and uh I'll touch on each of the phases that came in um and I've got a more extensive timeline as well but just to explain very briefly there was a first phase second and third the first was very center of the city about 21 Square kilom the second uh about
360 Square kmers it's even on the slide I don't have to remember this uh and then finally it's about 1600 square km so it's got huge in size over the time it's been introduced and the thing that differentiates this scheme perhaps from from some other cities is that there is
A discretionary charge that can be paid to enter the zone for example if you're not going to enter the Zone very often you almost you can kind of contribute to the the cost of polluting in the city rather than it being an outright restriction on being able to access the
City at all if that makes sense I can touch on that if I'm speaking too fast please uh someone wave at me because I can't see the chat function um the scheme came along um very much we when we first developed the scheme it was very much around differentiating
Between petrol and Diesel and just how much more contribution uh diesel vehicles were making to um nox emissions and contributing to the nitrum dioxide and and at the time when we first did this scheme there was a lot of push back from the car industry who basically told us
Off and said you know this is me when I was kind of working at the city Authority at the time they were kind of like you don't you should be you should be very neutral in the technology that you're talking about because you know it's for us to determine which is the
Best technology or for consumers to to determine that but we were really concerned about the diesel emissions in the city and you can still smell it in in the winter today in London um and we really had to take that fight and When developing this scheme because we also
Wanted to make sure it was quite as fair and proportionate as possible so if you had an older petual car which was built to the same emission standard as as a newer diesel car then why not differentiate to to give people a little bit more Choice around the type of vehicle they can
Use and obviously we knew the real world data that had come out of icct and also t& uh was very compelling so how's it going um the the picture on the left is uh myself when our fantastic campaigner Jima in in London from moms for lungs I would recommend checking them
Out joyful faces although on the right we certainly got quite a lot of protest um particularly from this Final Phase that has been introduced where the scheme got very large in size um and you know it's one thing to be carrying a cardboard coffin through the Streets of
London uh it's another to actually be uh blowing up the cameras and uh most recently someone created uh an improvised bomb and blew one of the enforcement cameras up which could have caused huge harm to people and there is a criminal and terrorist investigation underway as a result of that so it gives
You a flavor of the current sentiment uh in London at the moment and that has changed over time speak speaking of time the timeline the important thing is this scheme has been talked about uh for many years you know more than 10 years now in London so it was actually the previous
Mayor Boris Johnson if you've ever heard of him uh he announced plans for uh the ultr low emission Zone in 2013 and a lot of this was kind of related to the uh the infraction procedings uh that were starting to be discussed as a result of uh breaching the amb air quality
Directive we had diesel Gates not far after that which you know really started to vindicate this discussion we were having around the impact of diesel and eventually we London ended up with a new mayor sadik Khan who is still in post at the moment and he uh was very found the
Issue of air pollution very compelling and and actually approached it slightly differently from a health perspective and equalities perspective because we know the poorest people in our city um more often live in the most polluted areas and not just poorest people but more marginalized communities and they're more likely to be breathing in
The pollution and quite often less likely to even be contributing to the problem because they don't drive as much and this is obviously part of a bigger timeline across Europe we've put research out starting to understand the projection for the number of low emission zones uh in Europe and this was
Done short while ago now so it may not be as accurate um as the projection back then but sizable number of low Mission zones it's fair to say across Europe uh and Sophia contributing to that most recently so you know a key part of all this is how the scheme is communicated
To the public as well um and in that timeline I mentioned you know when you're first starting off having discussions around such a significant intervention you need to make sure that you know there are there are sort of compelling Communications put out to the public to express the issue of you know
And the problem and that is what the mayor of London did with these uh posters that he was really Keen to um ensure that uh you know people could start to understand how filthy really the the air quality is in London and and I'm sure you agree with me these are
Quite Stark and and and certainly uh made some news at the time and this was when he started to introduce which was like a an interim scheme around the congestion charge where he put on an extra uh sech charge onto that for polluting cars in advance of the ultral
Mission zone so it was a way of priming the public really and not only that there are campaigners on the grounds such as myself and and uh the Fantastic people at Ms fongs who I mentioned and also there's a picture here of a group I worked we' called choked up uh who are
Self-described black and brown teenagers taking the fight on clean air and you know there's been some f fantastic interventions done along the way to kind of draw the media attention and bring the discussion out on on why action is needed these lungs on the left change color eventually you know as they kind
Of reacted with the pollution I think it had been done in Poland before and then we've also for example put stencils on the streets and most recently we collaborated with uh various other NOS with support from C40 cities uh to do a campaign called clean air winds and we
Kind of took that idea that the mayor put out some time ago on on on how dirty London's air is and you wouldn't really want to drink it the impact of ultral low emission Zone has been remarkable uh particularly on nitrogen dioxide concentrations um so the mayor's office have worked with Consultants to
Calculate you know what would have what would the levels of N and D dioxide looked like if there was no ultra low emission zone so if vehicles are just changed and over time and and things havn't been sped up and 46% reduction in niton dioxide as a result of uh Auto low
Emission Zone and 21% in in the inner part of the city and that's because there are there are thousands and thousands of fewer polluting Vehicles now on the streets and not only that um an overall reduction of vehicles as well as people have started to take other uh ways to get around the
City in addition to to make it a success um there has been quite a bit of targeted uh mitigation to support people so you know concessions have been put in place for people who have disability needs need to access Hospital appointments um and even historic Vehicles so you know the mayor wasn't
Necessarily wanting to be a killjoy in terms of you can't use a classic car once a year you know as part of a festival if it's a historic vehicle it's very understandable you can't really do anything about that so that's also included and a very sizable scrappage scheme for
Vehicles um which have been targeted at low income households people with disability needs small uh businesses and and Charities as well and I think you know when you when you uh zoom out a little bit and you think about you know how these schemes into play across Europe I think
Scrappage is quite important particularly for Western uh countries because I think the last thing we would want to see is you know a sve of low emission zones coming in with ever tighter standards in Western Europe and then some of these really older polluting cars ending up more in in in
Eastern Europe and being sold there I think we have a responsibility here to think about you know how you know can we actually destroy those vehicles and and support by other means rather than them simply being kind of moved as a problem to somewhere else um and the mayor also
Introduced uh new express bus services although the uh you could argue that was quite late in the day although very well intend intended and and they're proven to be very successful but and there was a significant lack of support from the UK government in fact there was a a fair
Amount of uh briefing even by the Prime Minister himself against the scheme and this also meant that people accessing London from outside the city um didn't get any support from the mayor and that is kind of fair enough because you know the mayor has only got so much money
And he kind of looked to the government to try and intervene and actually support those uh other um districts um but in the end and it just ended up that they didn't have any access to support and I think that proved to be quite contentious another question from me is
Um cleaner air but what about greenhouse gas emissions and CO2 you know whilst the ules is uh affecting older the more polluting vehicles from an air pollution perspective we know that average new car emissions uh are increasing for for carbon emissions and SUVs are a big issue of
Concern um and there's a there's a there's a challenge now I think in the public domain around the fact that one of these big monstrous SUVs uh that are getting bigger and bigger because they're brand new they kind of comply with ultra low emission Zone but how
Does that quite reconcile for people and it's becoming more and more of a problem and in fact we've recently seen the mayor of Paris who is now Consulting to Triple parking feed in the city of Paris um for large SUVs on the 4th of February and we're doing some campaigning as
Clean cities around that and there'll be some new research coming out uh related to that very soon also I touched on timings a little bit with the ultra Lo Mission Zone You Know Not only was there a weaker social license for this in the biggest area so
When I'm talking about the third phase of the expansion we're reaching into areas where public transport accessibility is not as high as as it had been before and also quite frankly the political demographics varied quite a lot and not necessarily aligned with the mayor's own um ambition so this made it quite
Challenging and not only that the time scale was tight I mean March 22 the mayor announced uh the scheme and it was introduced in August 2023 and that is for an area where 5 million people live so you can understand why some of the push backs
Started to um arrive and we have a election in London in May uh and this is going to be a very prominent issue in that election in fact one of the main said that she will remove the sche the expansion on day one and is more often
Than not introducing herself as the stop the ulz uh candidate so stay tuned and perhaps you'll want to hear from me in six months um and there was also that you know that added to this I mentioned earlier just a clear lack of support from the government actively briefing
Against it which really didn't help um particularly if you're trying to get your message across his campaigners or or even the man himself that air pollution is is of is of concern in London and you got other people like the Prime Minister saying why are we doing this you
Know there is some further reading on our website or related to low emissions Z zones especially and I know this has been um circulated as well where you are one I wanted to touch on is around the five fast and fair solutions for cleaning up Urban transport and that was
Our response just high level at a European level how can we ensure that these schemes uh you know are fair when they're introduced and that's where we we take some of the lessons from London and from other cities looking thinking about scrappage schemes how do we reduce
The costs of bicycle per in certain cities public transport is key and then starting to think about these new Solutions as well that uh that technology is enabling uh which we called shared Mobility which is around scooters uh e bicycles excuse me that you can rent and also schemes where you
Can you can uh temporarily hire a car on your street so that you can share it with your neighbors and you don't have to buy a brand new car and I want to touch also on the things that have really complemented the success of the ultral low emission Zone
From an air pollution perspective very briefly one is around a lot of the investment that's going into cycling in London it's remarkable uh for those who have been fortunate to visit here I've lived here for more than 15 years now and we've seen the transformation and the type of infrastructure available for
People to cycle and that especially segregated safer cycling infrastructure and also one of these uh symbols is very new it's the Elizabeth line we uh uh after many decades of planning got a brand new train line across London which added 10% to the rail capacity uh and goes twice the speed of
The um the tube and it had 15 million people using it last year so that has really transformed uh how people get around here and you know I just I really hope you know whilst we were fortunate to get that level of investment and I really
Hope that we can learn from that and and other governments and and and city leaders look to it as as inspiration it's been very successful the mayor also had a policy around low and zero emission buses so you know it's very important that the city leader shows leadership and you
Know where you can demonstrate that the public fleets are moving ahead then it's not you know cuz a lot of the time when we first introduced ultra low emission Zone a lot of the questions from the public were oh but isn't it the buses that are the big problem what are you
Doing about the buses before you like ask me to make my change you should be leading the way and that's exactly what happened not only upgrading the buses and there is a very good retrofit solution for the for the diesel buses buying electric buses and I think London
Has about a thousand of those now but even being being even more strategic and thinking about okay we can't introduce this um Improvement all at once so where where which corridors in the city are most polluted that the buses contribute the most and also we have some of the most marginalized communities living
There so how do we roll this out in a very strategic way and that's what they called low emission bus zones so that's what the map is trying to show you that the green lines were kind of where they prioritized upgrading the buses to get the the the best um
Impact and we've also got a very famous taxi Fleet here in London um the black cabs uh and the legislation around these dates back to the 19th century so it's remarkable to try and change things but um more than half the fleet now are in plug-in hybrid vehicles uh and whilst
There's t& we're not that excited about plug-in hybrid technology we want to see them get a full electric model it's just such an out of this world change in terms of the the diesel taxi that they had that was really polluting in the city and uh frankly quieter much more
Comfortable to use so we're delighted to see many more of these on the street but they're very expensive unfortunately and there is dedicated charge points to support the taxi trade uh to use these vehicles link to that I suppose is when you've got a mayor who's showing this
Level of ambition you also get very um exciting announcements from the private sector and and Uber for example um actually announced that the every car in London would be fully electric by 2025 and I really hope they're on course for that um as I understand it they've got
Between 50 and 60,000 cars in London in fact the entire ride hailing uh industry has more than a 100,000 uh cars in London so it's quite a if if you can introduce policy that starts to shift those fleets because they're actually driving around very frequently in the city then you get some
Of your greatest benefit from a pollution perspective uh but there's still lots more room for improvement it's not all sunshine in London um we did put out a report recently around shared transport um we're being leap frogged um by you know cities elsewhere uh I know Liana scores very well in this report
And this is around um shared bikes it's around the E Scooters um not only are we kind of lacking in quantity but also legislation as well just to tidy this up before it gets too much of a mess because we don't want to be in a position like Paris
Where they're going to a public vote to actually ban this these solutions from the street I think we can do better than that here in London I hope we can and also shared cars as well CU we have to accept that there are many parts of the
City where the car is is necessary and public transport is is not very accessible and I would have loved campaigning around the ultral low Mission Zone to be able to say to someone you know don't worry there's an electric car you can use when you need
To at the end of your street and you can share it with your neighbors you know that's something that we're really Keen to uh see from the next mayor of London especially after the election there is also a very big road tunnel being built in London which is has raised millions
Of eyebrows uh particularly when the May has um such a strong climate record and this is very much about addressing um congest traffic congestion and the Victorian 19th century infrastructure we have to cross the uh the river in fact London's bridges are actually falling down just like the old song um and we're
Trying to address that but whether need to build such a significant piece of infrastructure at such a high cost although the private sector are financing it is a big question that will remain and a lot of people have called it a stain on the May's uh record and finally the other big issue
We're grappling with here in London is around um Vans Logistics Freight and that is going to be a big priority for us as Clean Cities campaign in the coming year we do need to see a transformation in um how Urban Freight happens and you know at the moment not
Only we seeing more and more vehicles on the streets uh driven more but we're seeing just a huge saave of diesel Vans you know when I was just talking earlier about the big issue of diesel in the UK especially we don't really have any alternative propulsion for these
Vehicles because we stepped away from gas quite some time ago and petrol vans so now we're stuck with more and more diesel Vans and we're trying to think about how we get more businesses to use electric vans and it goes back to what I said at the beginning of the
Presentation it's not just about newer Vehicles it's also about fewer vehicles and how do we get to that point well we've just had a great campaign here in London called cargo Revolution uh which is about um uh excelling the uh the benefits of cargo bikes because um actually it's a damn
Site quicker to cycle now in Central London than it is to use a motor vehicle and businesses are cutting on to that and in fact we've got some of the big business like dpd UPS Amazon UK who I was speaking to earlier they're all using um cargo bikes
And we want to explain to londoners but also businesses that this isn't a novelty thing anymore actually the technology can really help and because the city is investing so significantly in cycling infrastructure you you can make um big improvements not only for businesses but eventually we want to see
This campaign extend to include uh parents as well because in London 25% of the morning uh Peak car traffic is about getting kids to school and I think we can do something quite differently there as well with our streets for kids campaign that's the end of my
Presentation um I hope that was helpful I hope I didn't speak too fast and I'm here to take any uh questions sorry I was muted thanks Ollie uh you didn't speak first it was super clear and I didn't need to switch to Bulgarian I hope that people enjoyed your
Presentation either in English or Bulgarian uh yeah impressive but also super um thoughtful about the big Way Forward and I was very happy to see the cargo Revolution at the very end because we're just starting to talk about cargo vehicles and cargo bikes and the huge opportunity of this here in sopia and
This conversation is started by the Civil Society sector it's not started by the businesses it's not started by the regulator and we're definitely lagging behind so I'll be very dedicated to bring the revolution the cargo Revolution to sop as well uh I'll start with two questions we have here and they
The two of them are by my colleague who is also part of the Clean Air Team at zata he's the head of our team and if you want you can also get in the zoom just by raising your hand and you'll be able to talk or if you prefer
I can read the questions out well I don't see a reaction by by him uh so you can also read them they're in the Q&A but I'll read them out for everyone else if you can't see them and the first question is how do you address low emission zones and ultra low
Emission zones restrictions for vulnerable groups the discretionary fee that is paid in London isn't it just a free pass for richer people it's a great question um I suppose ultimately it's it's a balance um um maybe maybe start with saying how much it is and per day oh yeah thank you
Um the discretionary fee so is 12250 so UK pound isn't as valuable as maybe as it used to be what's that in in your local uh currency but um that is for cars and vans up to about 3 and 1 half tons I think and then uh it's it's
£100 um for anything much larger so like big heavy trucks and things like that and yes I think uh London has adopted a different approach and this question also makes me think back to some big announcements that were made by cities I remember Paris Madrid I think even Mexico City
All talked about one time Banning diesel entirely from their City um and it never quite come came to fruition and London kind of felt I remember at the time we're under a lot of pressure to agree to that policy or why are you not doing it if all these
Other cities are saying it and you could argue London went down a slightly more pragmatic approach which was you know we want to do something sooner um that would reduce pollution but not kind of like just stop everyone from being able to drive around where
They can and that's where this idea of a discretionary charge came in it does mean yes if you can afford that discretion charge you you you can access the city and you can continue to drive a polluting vehicle at the at least though that is a contribution to the the Health
And Social costs of doing that but the discretionary charge was also there so that if you were on a lower income or didn't really need to use your car very often you could maybe access the city once a month so pay 10 12 times a year rather than having to spend thousands to
Upgrade your car you can contribute to the cost of of you know causing that pollution and it's not ideal to have people driving more polluting cars in the city but it's there as a to disincentivize people but at the very least we do get a financial contribution from these people as well um
So in answer to your question it is a free pass for Rich of people but it was a bit of the balance as to enabling other people also to be able to not have a huge burden on them if if they only need to use their car not very often and
Ultimately the result of the scheme has been fewer cars actually being driven in the city so to some extent maybe you could argue that it's working I see is that okay and I see there's a second question um the role in congestion charge of reducing pollution and Motor Vehicles
You can take this one we also uh doing a small research here at zata trying to understand if a congestion charge scheme for Sofia will be something that will complement or even be better than the low emission zone so yeah the second question is about the congestion charge
And and its role in reducing pollution and car ownership and car usage yeah the has been very successful in London there are there's a report around the the pollution impact that I can dig out for you and um how it's reduced the number of vehicles I mean so
Much so now we've finally inspired New York City to introduce its own congestion charge later this year which will raise about $1 155 billion doar I understand for the subway system and whilst the ult emissions Zone was never intended to raise any money um because if you are only just raising money
Thinking about the previous question then it's not quite working whereas with the congestion charge it was very much intended to to uh disincentivize people but raise money and invest in public transport and one of the big biggest successes of that scheme has been that
We got new bus lanes in the city and the bus services vastly improved because we were able to take that funding and invest it into those services at the same time it had helped to reduce um air pollutants as well as greenhouse gas emissions not to the same extent as uh
The ultra low emission Zone um however congestion in London has returned um so whilst the volume of vehicles in central London has been decreasing I mean we have Crossing into the central London area every day more than half a million cars um but that used to be much higher
So whilst we have fewer vehicles coming into the center of city now congestion is has has creeped back and that is because we've been able to start to remove some of that road capacity and going back to the pillars I introduced at the start of the presentation to hand
That that back to people a little bit like what an algo is doing in Paris as well so segregated cycling infrastructure more bus lanes more pedestrianized spaces and we're going to have to play catchup again now because I would argue that the congestion charge is running out of steam a little bit and
We have to think about a much more Dynamic uh way of uh perhaps pricing uh motor vehicles that want to access the busiest part of the city 24 hours 7 Days seven days a week in my opinion um and and also accounting for this huge rise
In in in SUVs as well so it'll be interesting to see how the next May of London wants to approach that but you know I would still very much advocate for congestion charging uh in other cities and be fantastic to see in sopia it's the it's the measure which
Was introduced much earlier than the low emission zone right yeah yeah so to 2003 I think which was 10 years prior to okay there are some questions in the chat as well as in the Q&A so I I I propose we take the ones from the Q&A
First and then we go to the chat and then we also um look at the other channels where the webinar is streamed in Facebook and in YouTube If there are some questions from there but please feel free to raise your hand you can address your question directly to ollie or share comments uh
Impressions any any thoughts you have so feel free you're welcome to to jump in into the live stream and speak to us as well uh so the next question is by Amilia Ang I'm not sure where she is from Emil if you want you can introduce yourself
She's saying thank you very much and her question two questions which are related to each other the first one is about the monitoring system and do you use citizen science citizen dur network of sensors or do you actually own the hardware I'm not sure if it's related to the Clean
Cities campaign in London or or or the the municipality owns network but I would say because you said you're also doing independent monitoring I would say it's about the Clean Cities campaign in London and the second one is on the discretionary as well in the charge is it the same as a
Congestion fee and if not could you explain the difference and also the impact it had on the forbidding entering entirely but actually texing this oh well I think this you you covered the second part of the question so yeah yeah let's start with the first one the monitoring system uh is predominantly
Almost all uh delivered by the public sector um we have 33 different authorities in in London and they pay for a lot of the automatic monitoring and they also pay for a lot of the diffusion tube uh monitorings and uh there is also a scheme being run by uh the mayor of
London um which um I'll pass to Drager is called brieve London um and that uh is a scheme whereby Community groups can opt into the network and there is a limited number that have been handed out to community groups and then there's a limited number that can also be sponsored by local
Businesses or local Community Partnerships so that's been a nice way I think for the public sector and Civil Society to to work together to improve air quality monitoring but it's predominantly um driven by the public sector although there have been uh more like temporary campaigns run by groups
That we work with such as friends of the earth London who would put out sort of diffusion tubes in in areas where they think a big hot spots and and not enough attention is getting put onto the issue with also there's also been academic uh some interesting academic
Monitoring work for example with uh backpacks where school children have worn the backpack pack on their way to school and it's been fascinating to see how their uh exposure to air pollution changes and particularly when the by the roadside for example which was very eye opening for a lot of people in
London the discretionary UL charge is separate to the congestion charge so um the UL operates 24 hours 7 days a week and you pay the charge depending on how old your car is you know how polluting it is the congestion charge is very much if you are accessing the center of the
City at Peak time you need to pay uh a certain amount of money and that's currently around5 I think or thereabouts so the two are on top of each other at the minute there is an argument now and I don't know if they've had the same discussion in Bulgaria but this has been
Going on for some time in the UK like how do we start to change how people pay to drive their vehicles and is there a case for something is a bit more sophisticated around pay per mile so if you know you only pay according to when
You're using your car and and how much it pollutes rather than having an annual charge or having a charge that you pay for the whole day for example you know you might only be using it for a very short period of time and that's something that will continue to be
Discussed but it's a hot potato that is passed between politicians because no one really wants to open the can of worms about how should we start a conversation with people about how they pay to drive because uh no one wants to even think about having to pay to drive
Really thank you very much OE uh the next question is on on reducing car ownership and the usage of cars it's byov it's again in the Q&A window and he's asking what is the best way to build a culture of active Transportation among the general public yeah this is a
Very huge question uh I I guess you won't be able to give us the the magic recipe and do you have any advice with on Which social groups to start with you already mentioned the parents as a very high Target in your campaigns but yeah yeah no can just say it's a very
Important question and you know at the end of the day we're having to undo sort of Decades of damage of building our cities and our lives around cars so the infrastructure even is against us to some extent because it's just so much easier quite often to use your
Car houses are being built around just using cars and not only that we're still up against very significant advertising from the car industry where it's about lifestyle you know it makes me think way back when when people were selling C and it was all about the lifestyle and not
About the health impacts and it's to some extent it's the same with these monster vehicles that are now being sold without you know next time you see a car advert just see if you see any other cars in the car advert and if there's any traffic or if it actually starts to
Give you any dose of reality with it so I suppose that's my first caveat you know to that we're up we're up against years of this and the best way to do it I don't think there's necessarily a best way but there's been success in London um and we're having success as a
Campaign across Europe with a campaign called streets for kids um which we are encouraging all our partners to get involved in where we're striking up a conversation outside the school Gates around the impact of air pollution on children and you they're some of the most V vulnerable people to this uh
Issue and how you know isn't it nice if the street outside the school is closed off for a temporary amount of time you can talk to people you know there's it makes it safer for the kids to walk around and cycle and it starts us to
Open up a whole new mindset in terms of how streets could look differently and that has definitely proven to be successful in um in Italy for example I know there's been some really remarkable uh shift in ambition starting at often a low base um to look at introducing these temporary restrictions
Outside schools and I see that as maybe you know the social groups and and and as example of a social group to to start to influence um and then perhaps also you know um students would be maybe be another one if you've got quite a a big sort of University population in the
City as well and they could be good advocates for for active Transportation thanks a lot OE the next question is by Fabio noio he has also written in the chat so thanks Fabio for posting your question here he's from the Rome Mobility agency maybe you've worked together ear I don't know
Uh but uh he's asking about a comparison of data between nitrogen oxide he has written but I guess he means nitrogen dioxide because you mentioned that this is what you have been monitoring you have comparison data between Nitro nitrogen dioxide pollution in August December 2023 uh after the UL was uh entered into
Force versus the same period of 2022 so that's the latest uh expansion of the scheme and they this would come from the mayor's office and they've done a report a month since the scheme started uh and that only looked at like compliance of the vehicles and obviously
You need to be a bit careful when you look at emissions but also especially concentrations because of needing to see the the impact bed in however there is a report online already one month on and I think there's going to be a there'll probably be a six-month on report I
Would Hazard guess so that's something to look out for but I can put in the chat now just that one month on report just so you get an idea of what they've um published so far so the the question the answer is ultimately no there isn't really that
Comparison yet on the emissions um side of it from what I understand but there have been previous reports on the previous phases which is what I put the chart in my in my presentation from okay I won't be clicking the done button because the question will disappear I'll just leave it for your
Link to be visible for a while and we have one more question in the Q&A which is by deer petol who is from the sopia city council uh and he's asking do you have any information as to what percentage of fines imposed on emission Zone Val violators are appealed in
Court if there is such a procedure at all okay I guess this is a direct question linking to the situation in sopia because um the the the way to impose and actually collect the the fines is very unclear and we expect that many people would just challenge them in court and
Actually the skin will not be able to be imposed in the way it is thought to be uh so thanks de and only if you can say how how you do it in London yeah um well in the UK I think we're quite we seem to be very like okay with the
Surveillance state which means we've got a lot of cameras everywhere and I always think about my friends in Paris who really don't like that but uh in London we've we've been very fortunate to have a very sophisticated camera Network so the enforcement is done automatically using cameras and they can access the
Registration plate of a car and then it can look up the age of that car and and the fuel type and then it knows what sort of Euro standard is and then if someone hasn't paid the discretionary so if it complies it's fine if it's an
Exempt fine but if it hasn't paid the discretionary charge then they get a fine and that goes to them in the post and it can be appealed but it's more often than not I would have thought they don't win those appeals I know that transport from London do um publish
Information around compliance and how many people have got fines and and all that sort of stuff and it is available on their website I think it's in the report I provided um and then also um Drager I'll send you a link to um where some more of that information will be available as
Well um but uh yes there is information out there and it's on the transport for London website okay checking it as done uh a few more questions from Fabio faio thanks a lot for being so active do you want to ask directly raise your hand you're welcome too uh so the next
Question is when and where the present okay well several people asked about the presentation uh o we haven't talked about this but I guess uh we'll be able to share a pdf version of the presentation to everyone who has registered so you receive it by email so don't worry you have all this
Information sent by us I would say by the end of this week so watch out for an email from us uh yeah and uh let's check the chat okay this is something you posted Vol thanks a lot uh my colleague Peter who is the communicator of the Clean Air
Team at is raising a hand I guess there are some questions from Facebook maybe or from YouTube so pet welcome hi hi Oliver no uh I just wanted to to add that Deiter had another question but I decided to ask to answer it myself and it was that if the w
Mission zone is in effect all year I know that the low emission Zone in London is in effect every day of the year and the ultra W emission zone is in effect every day except Christmas day but I don't know why there is an exception on Christmas Day is some kind
Of tradition or something we want to elaborate on that yeah yeah it does follow on from the congestion charge to some extent which has always been suspended over the Christmas holidays and because the ultr loone Mission Zone includes Passenger cars and so basically frankly people using their vehicles I think they feel
Christmas Day because public transport isn't available then they need to suspend the scheme whereas the low emission Zone covers just Freight vehicles and it isn't related to the fact that the public transport network is shut down or not yeah that's fair um I have I have a semi question there was
Something which I was very impressed with in the last edition of the Clean Cities campaign webinar that we have almost monthly and this was the comment I think it was from Barbara saying that the prices of of properties around the in and around the low emission zones and
The ultra low emission zones started to R to rise and there was a huge interest of investors in construction to actually build new h and and to offer new accommodation to people in this zon so it becomes a very attractive area for investors in construction um yeah just just wanted to
Hear how how you how do you interpret this and is this really a trend and is this for for the better and do we see uh construction companies as our Alle or this is a rather negative Trend that will of yeah bring more Division and um yeah divide in the
City it's a fascinating question isn't it I think Barbara might have also been referring to sort of low traffic zones as much as sort of the emission schemes um and I think something we've not done very well historically is capturing the from a public sector perspective capturing the added value that comes
From this investment in for example rail capacity nicer and more pleasant streets and New Town squares for communities and that obviously makes areas more accessible people friendly more attractive to uh go visit but also to live there and a lot of the land owners and the developers will uh
Benefit from that and a good example of so I think historically we've never quite sort of as the public sector we've made all that investment but then it's kind of then benefited also not it's benefited the greater good but it's also benefited a lot of the people who own
All the uh the land in that area and developers really get that so there are some very forward and Progressive thinking developers in London who want to see more and more pedestrianization of the center of the city for example they want to see more zero emission
Zones you know I'll give you an example as an organization they're not developers but they're called the new West End company and they represent very big uh retailers in the center of the Cities such as selfes and they also have the crown estate on their board so that's basically the people who
Deal with all the land and buildings The Fabulous buildings on region street that are owned by the the the palace for example and they advocate for a zero Mission area of some sort in the center of the city and they advocate for pession ation of our major High Street
Oxford Street because they see the the benefit that comes from that the best example I've got at the moment of how we've started to address this is um we have a thing in the UK and in London especially called the community infrastructure Levy which is if you uh
So we use that I think to help pay for this brand new train line that I mentioned in the knowing that this is where the train Line's going if you are building a development around that new station that's going to kind of appear in about 10 years
Time there's a bit of tax and Levy that is kind of put onto that developer to give back to um the state because you're kind of capturing that added value as a result of the state making an investment in the area if that makes sense that's
My very basic way of explaining that but it's it's been a good way to start to respond to that I think awesome I really want to see this um recognition also happening in other cities in in Europe and uh yeah this is probably a topic for another webinar the
Low traffic zones we're not going to talk more about this because it's a huge topic um and we already um coming to almost the end of our webinar we'll stay for a few minutes more just to take a few more questions uh the interpretation will still be on for a couple of more
Minutes so feel free to raise your hand if you still haven't been able to ask a question uh Peter you are already on do we have some comments reactions questions from Facebook or from YouTube from the live streams no we don't have any other yet okay so there is one more question from
Evo from the Clean Air Team at zata and it's about the requirements for electrification you've been mentioning the Corp Fleet and some good examples by ups and so on the question is is this um is there legal requirement or this is tled via the ulez in London yeah well firstly to say
Um from a UK perspective there's a new requirement on um vehicle manufacturers to be selling a proportion of electric vehicles and that's called the zero emission vehicle mandate that started at beginning of this year that transport and environment our host charity have been doing a lot of work on at a city
Level um it's a very pertinent question actually and it's something that I'm going to be doing quite a bit of work on this year because in the M's transport strategy the the idea was that the ultra low emission Zone starts to evolve into a zero emission Zone to put this sort of
Requirement on electrification of fleets further down the line as a result of the back lash on ules the mayor has gone a little bit more cold and he's actually said he might shove those plans which was meant to start from sometime in 2025 which is in my opinion these big fleets
Were looking towards that as a way to you know understand what is going to be required of them and they're starting to invest quite heavily so I do see quite a lot of electric um Vehicles related to the the corporations that you've mentioned in your question like DHL and
UPS Ikea as well another example um but I'm worried that without the mayor continuing to explain what's happening next then they might start to just hold back some of that investment because of the cost of living issue right now and also because other cities like Amsterdam are all steamrolling
Ahead still saying there going to be a zero emission Zone in the coming years and I I don't really a bit healthy competition between cities I think I put it to the mayor of London we don't want to like lose out because you're not saying anything so there's actually a
Campaign that I'm going to initiate in London this year around a zero Mission probably a zero Mission delivery area for the central of the city because the wheels are already in motion and I think we can kind of accelerate it a little bit and we're also looking to uh
Replicate that in uh Milan uh we're very interested in Paris as well there's work going on there with Logistics and also zaragosa with our Spanish Partners these are some of the areas that we've kind of um sort of deemed a priority from a clean City's perspective and it's also where we have
Resourcing to just to add on um finally on taxis the taxis are licensed by the mayor by Transport for London uh so actually the black cabs are exempt from the ultr low Mission Zone because there's a completely separate policy around um getting them to go electric
And that is a it's an interesting policy that's worked quite well in my opinion uh a few years ago the mayor said from this date we're not going to license any more new digel taxis you have to then get a new electric C so it enables the
Current Fleet to start to phase out and there is an age limit on those vehicles but it does also mean there's a specific date when you have to start going electric and that has also led to investment by manufacturer because they know there's going to be a supply you
Know customers on the pipeline so rather than just trying to encourage people they know that the taxi drivers are going to have to start start buying this vehicle and therefore they have the certainty and that has now led to more than half the fleet being electric
Rather than Diesel and I think the the aim is by 2030 or just after that the whole Fleet will be uh plugg in electric so that's been an interesting policy that I've always been Keen to see replicated elsewhere really in other cities because the most important thing
Is with that policy you're not affecting the taxi driver here and now you're actually working with them to say this is happening in a couple of years and it's going to be phased out and and you can get there in the future but it's giving everyone greater certainty I
Think depending on who's got the powers to license these vehicles thanks a lot OE uh is there a timeline like a 2030 timeline for going zero emissions uh for all vehicles in London is there such an ambition of direct policies that have been that are working towards achieving this goal
Yeah in the May's transport strategy and environment strategy which was published a you know probably about five years ago now they talked about 2050 for the entire city being sort of a zero emission zone of some sort and that's you know, 1600 square kilometers 10 million people but it was talking about
The center of the city going much quicker and ideally a zero Mission area from from at least 2025 the mayor subsequently when he got reelected talked about trying to achieve carbon neutral neutrality in the City by 2030 which feels incredibly ambitious now was stepped into 20 24 um so it will
Be really interesting to see if he sticks with that level of ambition um in the upcoming election and if that is the case then we need to see quite a remarkable shift in uh and delivery around that um and he himself has already said that to achieve that level
Of ambition we need to see a reduction in vehicle uh car kilometers being driven in the City by 27% in um in the next six or seven years which is a remarkable would be a remarkable shift so uh let's wait and see what level of ambition comes from the next candidates
To be Mar ofland and and then we can uh apply the pressure after okay last chance for anyone who still has some questions or want to come share Impressions or share um his um experience of interacting with the low Mission Zone in sopia welcome raise your hand or type
In the chat um I'm also inviting you to share further questions you have regarding L Beyond this webinar because we are planning to do a series of webinars like this one so if this one did not touch some of the topics um which are are related to the better implementation or successful
Implementation of the low emission Zone in Sofia please type them in the chat and we'll look into them and uh try to find an opportunity to to address them with more talks like this one only if you have some final announcements you already uh disclosed some of the
Campaigns that you're working on some of the things which are coming up but something that you want to share with us something to look forward to from the Clean Cities campaign and the Clean Cities campaign in London in particular um just share with us I see pet is
Raising a hand so maybe before the yeah there is a wasm question in our Facebook feed and it is about uh uh what do you think is the impact of the electrification in Road Transport in terms of Transport poverty MH mhm yeah um basically how do we make
Electric cars and electric vehicles more affordable to everyone and not just um more app people well I suppose this stems a little bit for me um from this whole concept of not just seeing newer cars but fewer cars as well and how we get people to share cars more so I think one
Of the best routes in to making electric vehicles accessible and affordable to people is having car sharing schemes in their neighborhoods so that everyone can access an electric car and use it and get familiar with it and then also thinking about social leasing schemes as well which is a recommendation in our
Report that I think was introduced in France for example where smaller uh businesses can get um grants from the government which have had some interv intervention from the state as well so they're more affordable and I would say the same could be done for low-income households as well so related to the scrappage
Scheme uh in London you know it's tied very much to people's income so if you can get a grant to scrap your vehicle and then you can get a grant from the government or cheaper um financing uh backed by the government then those two kind of marry up together but it's a
Very good point and I think it does need to be very much uh addressed at a national local and and international level yeah thanks s there is a comment from my colleague Evo in the chat but you can uh read it for yourself um yeah and uh well up to my invitation
If you still have something to share with us thanks a lot for still still staying with us uh I'm I'm sure it's been tiring to take so many questions but I'm also very happy that we had such an active participation and I didn't have to come up with weird questions uh
Thanks a lot for participating really I I would say uh the the the main thing coming out from our campaign in the in the coming days and the next couple of weeks is related to the referendum in Paris around uh SUVs and there'll be some research uh looking at
Uh the size of vehicles in Europe and how this is a concern for us so it might be of interest to you when that comes out and particularly when you're looking at the European uh level data uh and watch the space for those campaigns I mentioned around zero Mission uh areas
In the city what we do next with the cargo bik campaign we'd love to try and see how we can almost provide that you know the way the Clean Cities campaign Works to some extent is how do we support local partners with communication tools and things like that
So if we can take the branding of that and the model for it and it's able to be replicated somewhere else then that would be fantastic so we could we could talk about that a bit more and then maybe finally the other campaign I've had quite a bit success with in London
Is around it sounds Niche but it's around where people get to keep their bicycles at home because we've got so many so much housing in the city that people are living in very small flats and if you want to try and encourage people to cycle where the hell do you
Keep your bike so we've been having a lot of success to try and get more parking spaces to be turned into sort of uh storage units with sort of uh uh bike hangers we call them so that actually residents can keep their bikes on the street and safely use them and secure
Them and that's something it's smaller pieces that feel maybe a bit Niche that actually add up and help people live a a lifestyle where they don't they're not as reliant on using cars so that's that's something else perhaps to to mention about London but thanks so much
For inviting me um I'll press on but um really nice to be with you today thank you very much indeed and it's a fantastic campaign on where you keep your bike if you can share the link to it there are amazing images and really inspirational uh compaining for for better cycling infrastructure in
London uh mentioning which one of the main things that I'm taking from this webinar are the supportive measures which make the work of the ls really successful which is the investment in working and cycling investment in more and better public transport and in shared mobility and in relation to this
I'm just sharing something Zamata has been active on in the chat since September and this is the petition on budget recycling infrastructure in Sofia it's already got almost 5,000 signatures and it's going to be presented to the mayor in the next few weeks so watch out for
This if you haven't signed it yet please do so it's uh in the chat you can open the link and um yeah definitely something we have to work on the Alternatives and the supportive measures to um yeah just just to to make it possible to move to clean mobility and
Clean transportation in the city Only I'll switch to Bulgaria now thanks a lot indeed grateful for your input and really looking forward to working in the Clean Cities Campaign together in 2024 and yeah for everybody else a last thing that I would like to share other than
The invitation uh you can share about what you want to apply for the low emission Zone in Sofia if you have not uh uh sent a message to us in the chat then email us we're open zata will continue to follow the topic and we would have a great interest in the zone
Working better but on February the 25th we're preparing a public event which would be live in sofhia it's half a day 99 to13 on the topic of clean mobility and we we uh will have several panels uh dedicated to um active Mobility public transportation and uh low emission zones
But also other measures uh limiting in some way the um automobile transportation and uh you know fostering uh clean Transportation if you're interested follow our Channel as well very soon we're going to uh follow receive our invitations January the 21st 9 13 will be in launchy in Tums
Building thank you so much uh uh you can find us uh in z.org we have our emails and contacts there and uh we are a clean a team from zaz myself who also joined us today thank you so much and let's all fight for a cleaner air and uh better public
Transportation and cleaner public transportation in Sofia until we meet again goodbye by
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