IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ira/wpaper/202222.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

"Have Low Emission Zones slowed urban traffic recovery after Covid-19?"

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Albalate

    ((GiM-IREA). Observatori d’Anàlisi i Avaluació de Polítiques Públiques. Facultat d’Economia i Empresa. Universitat de Barcelona. Departament d’Econometria Estadística i Economia Aplicada. Secció Polítiques públiques. John Maynard Keynes 1-11, Torre 6, planta 3. 08034 Barcelona. Tel: +34.493031131)

  • Xavier Fageda

    ((GiM-IREA). Observatori d’Anàlisi i Avaluació de Polítiques Públiques. Facultat d’Economia i Empresa. Universitat de Barcelona. Departament d’Econometria Estadística i Economia Aplicada. Secció Polítiques públiques. John Maynard Keynes 1-11, Torre 6, planta 3. 08034 Barcelona. +34.93.4039721)

Abstract

This paper provides a bridge between the literature on the effects of the pandemic on mobility and the literature on low emission zones (LEZ) impacts. Using data for large European cities in the period 2018-2021, we examine whether LEZ may explain differences in the recovery patterns of traffic in European cities after the covid shock. Controlling for several city attributes, we examine whether LEZ cities are less congested before and after the pandemic in comparison to non-LEZ cities. Our hypothesis is that LEZ may have been more effective in reducing congestion after the pandemics because the fleet renewal process has slowed down. Our results validate the traffic mitigating role of LEZ, which is robust to the lasting effects of Covid-19.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Albalate & Xavier Fageda, 2022. ""Have Low Emission Zones slowed urban traffic recovery after Covid-19?"," IREA Working Papers 202222, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Dec 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:ira:wpaper:202222
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2022/202222.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexander Bick & Adam Blandin & Karel Mertens, 2023. "Work from Home before and after the COVID-19 Outbreak," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 1-39, October.
    2. Awad-Núñez, Samir & Julio, Raky & Moya-Gómez, Borja & Gomez, Juan & Sastre González, Julián, 2021. "Acceptability of sustainable mobility policies under a post-COVID-19 scenario. Evidence from Spain," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 205-214.
    3. Yan, Yingying & Zhong, Shiquan & Tian, Junfang & Jia, Ning, 2022. "An empirical study on consumer automobile purchase intentions influenced by the COVID-19 outbreak," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Bernardo, Valeria & Fageda, Xavier & Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2021. "Pollution and congestion in urban areas: The effects of low emission zones," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 26.
    5. Currie, Graham & Jain, Taru & Aston, Laura, 2021. "Evidence of a post-COVID change in travel behaviour – Self-reported expectations of commuting in Melbourne," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 218-234.
    6. Hendrik Wolff, 2014. "Keep Your Clunker in the Suburb: Low‐emission Zones and Adoption of Green Vehicles," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(578), pages 481-512, August.
    7. Albalate, Daniel & Fageda, Xavier, 2021. "On the relationship between congestion and road safety in cities," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 145-152.
    8. Eisenmann, Christine & Nobis, Claudia & Kolarova, Viktoriya & Lenz, Barbara & Winkler, Christian, 2021. "Transport mode use during the COVID-19 lockdown period in Germany: The car became more important, public transport lost ground," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 60-67.
    9. Lucía Mejía-Dorantes & Lídia Montero & Jaume Barceló, 2021. "Mobility Trends before and after the Pandemic Outbreak: Analyzing the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona through the Lens of Equality and Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-23, July.
    10. Abdullah, Muhammad & Ali, Nazam & Hussain, Syed Arif & Aslam, Atif Bilal & Javid, Muhammad Ashraf, 2021. "Measuring changes in travel behavior pattern due to COVID-19 in a developing country: A case study of Pakistan," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 21-33.
    11. Charitha Dias & Noorhazlinda Abd Rahman & Muhammad Abdullah & Nur Sabahiah Abdul Sukor, 2021. "Influence of COVID-19 Mobility-Restricting Policies on Individual Travel Behavior in Malaysia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-18, December.
    12. Jose Maria Barrero & Nick Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2020. "60 Million Fewer Commuting Hours Per Day: How Americans Use Time Saved by Working from Home," Working Papers 2020-132, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    13. Wolff, Hendrik, 2014. "Keep Your Clunker in the Suburb: Low Emission Zones and Adoption of Green Vehicles," IZA Discussion Papers 8180, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Zhang, Junyi & Hayashi, Yoshitsugu & Frank, Lawrence D., 2021. "COVID-19 and transport: Findings from a world-wide expert survey," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 68-85.
    15. Ian W. H. Parry & Margaret Walls & Winston Harrington, 2007. "Automobile Externalities and Policies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(2), pages 373-399, June.
    16. Beaudoin, Justin & Farzin, Y. Hossein & Lin Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia, 2015. "Public transit investment and sustainable transportation: A review of studies of transit's impact on traffic congestion and air quality," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 15-22.
    17. Adam Przybylowski & Sandra Stelmak & Michal Suchanek, 2021. "Mobility Behaviour in View of the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic—Public Transport Users in Gdansk Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hamilton, Timothy L. & Wichman, Casey J., 2018. "Bicycle infrastructure and traffic congestion: Evidence from DC's Capital Bikeshare," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 72-93.
    2. Anwar, Muhammad Azfar & Dhir, Amandeep & Jabeen, Fauzia & Zhang, Qingyu & Siddiquei, Ahmad Nabeel, 2023. "Unconventional green transport innovations in the post-COVID-19 era. A trade-off between green actions and personal health protection," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PA).
    3. Fageda, Xavier & Flores-Fillol, Ricardo & Theilen, Bernd, 2022. "Price versus quantity measures to deal with pollution and congestion in urban areas: A political economy approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    4. Bernardo, Valeria & Fageda, Xavier & Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2021. "Pollution and congestion in urban areas: The effects of low emission zones," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 26.
    5. Daniel Albalate & Xavier Fageda, 2019. "Congestion, Road Safety, and the Effectiveness of Public Policies in Urban Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-21, September.
    6. Pezoa, Raúl & Basso, Franco & Quilodrán, Paulina & Varas, Mauricio, 2023. "Estimation of trip purposes in public transport during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Santiago, Chile," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    7. Xavier Fageda, 2021. "Measuring the impact of ride‐hailing firms on urban congestion: The case of Uber in Europe," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(5), pages 1230-1253, October.
    8. Viard, V. Brian & Fu, Shihe, 2015. "The effect of Beijing's driving restrictions on pollution and economic activity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 98-115.
    9. Bagdatli, Muhammed Emin Cihangir & Ipek, Fatima, 2022. "Transport mode preferences of university students in post-COVID-19 pandemic," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 20-32.
    10. Zhang, Wei & Lin Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia & Umanskaya, Victoria I., 2017. "The effects of license plate-based driving restrictions on air quality: Theory and empirical evidence," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 181-220.
    11. Shihe Fu & V. Brian Viard, 2022. "A mayors perspective on tackling air pollution," Chapters, in: Charles K.Y. Leung (ed.), Handbook of Real Estate and Macroeconomics, chapter 16, pages 413-437, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Wang, Chunan & Jiang, Changmin, 2022. "How do pandemics affect intercity air travel? Implications for traffic and environment," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 330-353.
    13. Luechinger, Simon & Roth, Florian, 2016. "Effects of a mileage tax for trucks," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 1-15.
    14. Li, Pei & Lu, Yi & Wang, Jin, 2020. "The effects of fuel standards on air pollution: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    15. Piera Bello, 2021. "The environmental cost and the accident externality of driving: Evidence from the Swiss franc's appreciation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1440-1458, July.
    16. Tscharaktschiew, Stefan & Reimann, Felix, 2021. "On employer-paid parking and parking (cash-out) policy: A formal synthesis of different perspectives," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 499-516.
    17. Isaksen, Elisabeth & Johansen, Bjørn G., 2021. "Congestion pricing, air pollution, and individual-level behavioural responses," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111493, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.
    19. Ferreira, Sara & Amorim, Marco & Lobo, António & Kern, Mira & Fanderl, Nora & Couto, António, 2022. "Travel mode preferences among German commuters over the course of COVID-19 pandemic," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 55-64.
    20. Fabio Antoniou & Efthymia Kyriakopoulou, 2019. "On the Strategic Effect of International Permits Trading on Local Pollution," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(3), pages 1299-1329, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Low Emission Zones; Congestion; Traffic; Access restrictions; Sustainability; Cities. JEL classification: R41; R11; R52.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ira:wpaper:202222. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alicia García (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feubaes.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.