Abstract
This paper presents an assessment of the economic benefits of the possible introduction of a low emission zone in central Prague restricting the access of vehicles that do not meet specified emission limits. Two variants were considered: in the first scenario entry is banned for vehicles that do not meet the EURO 2 emission limit, and in the second scenario access restriction applies to vehicles that do not meet the EURO 3 emission limit.
The spatial extent of the zone is designed to cover the wider city centre, while allowing unrestricted access on the boundary roads of the zone. Using the impact pathway approach based ExternE methodology, an estimation is made of the benefits from reduced emissions of air pollutants based on dispersion modelling of primary pollutants.
The scope of assessment is limited to impacts on human health only; other effects caused by air pollution (as well as other externalities) are not covered. The results suggest that the introduction of a low emission zone would likely lead to a tiny reduction in negative impacts by 1% and 2.3%, respectively, for a looser and stricter variant of the low emission zone.
A policy lesson from this exercise is that if the introduction of a low emission zone in Prague is to be adopted, then thorough preparation and evaluation of alternative variants for the efficient fulfilment of the objective(s) sought should precede it.