Policy success or economic slowdown?: effects of the 80 km/h-1 speed limit on air pollution in the Barcelona metropolitan area
- Autores: Germà Bel i Queralt, Jordi Rosell Segura
- Localización: Notas técnicas: [continuación de Documentos de Trabajo FUNCAS], ISSN-e 1988-8767, Nº. 663, 2012
- Idioma: inglés
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- Dialnet Métricas: 1 Cita
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Resumen
In 2008 the regional government of Catalonia reduced the maximum speed limit on several stretches of urban motorway in the Barcelona metropolitan area to 80 km·h-1.
The main reason for this measure was to reduce NOx and PM10 emissions. This paper evaluates whether the measure has been successful in promoting cleaner air. We use the differences-in-differences method to assess the policy impact. Our empirical estimation indicates that the speed limit reduction to 80 km·h-1 caused a very slight quality improvement in NOx, reducing pollutant air levels by between 0% and 2.1%. For PM10 levels, however, the measure may have had the opposite result by causing an increase in pollutant levels of between 0% and 4.2% in the affected area. Overall, our evaluation suggests that the speed limit change has not had much more influence on the changes in pollutants than other factors, as the economic slowdown.
