Combining measurements of air quality and traffic congestion in Madrid roads
Road traffic is one of the key problems that modern European urban areas need to solve in order to improve the quality of life of their inhabitants. The high rates of growth of European cities have brought dramatic changes in the road traffic over the past years with significant increases in road journeys and traffic congestion. Consequently air quality in urban areas has been greatly affected with Particulate Matter of 10 Microns in diameter or smaller (PM-10) and NOx often exceeding European limit values. In an effort to provide an integrated solution to identify impact reduction options the OSCAR project conducted an extensive study across many European cities including Madrid. The study included measurements on air quality, meteorology and traffic congestion in roads. These data were further compared with data from other European cities and were used to feed models for testing their capability to be employed as tools for developing sustainable transport strategies. For the purposes of the study, 25 work stations were used across the urban area of Madrid gathering data for period of two years. With the exception of one, namely an urban background station called Casa de Campo, the yearly average limit value (40μg/m³) was found to be exceeded. Two stations located close to roads with high levels of traffic in urban commercial residential areas (Paseo de Recoletos and Pl. Luca de Tena) provided the highest levels. However, the hourly air quality was found below the new EU hourly limit value. The highest concentrations of air pollutants were derived from a traffic station close to a highly congested road at Pl. M. Salamanca and at another station at Paseo de Recoletos. Particularly, O3 levels were below EU standard specifications, while PM10 daily data would also have exceeded the new EU limit value during the second year of the study. The useful data gathered is offered for further exploitation to organisations active in the field of air quality management and to end users in EU countries.
