Web links for transport issues

Ways in which transport emissions reduce local air quality
Look at recent weekly data on pollutants in your local area or see how air quality varies from place to place, and from day to day using The UK National Air Quality Information Archive site.

The London air quality network site provides data on the many monitoring sites in London and allows you to plot graphs of your choice using data which goes back to 1993.

Look at a report about degrees of uncertainty in measurements of air quality on the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory web site.

For information on air pollution and maps showing pollutant levels in different parts of the country have a look at the information about some of the Regional Pollutants in the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory.

The UK National Air Quality Information Archive also has information on trends. On its home page click on 'Emissions' to reach the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. Then go to reports to find data about a range of emissions from 1970 to 2001.

Impacts of poor air quality on health
See this website for useful fact sheets on air pollution (please note the site is no longer being kept up to date).

See a POST note on air quality and health. A summary of the health issues and the role of government strategies to reduce problems for the UK parliament.

A good explanation on how risks from air pollution are estimated from the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has produced guidelines on air pollution levels and information on the key pollutants, how they arise, and their short and long-term effects.

See this informative site on a range of environmental issues from Belgium.

Trends in the use of fossil fuels for transport and their contributions to greenhouse gas concentrations

A wealth of statistics are contained on this site about how we travel in the UK, how safe it is, how much fuel we use and how polluting it is.

International statistics on trends in use of different fuels including information on the use of oil for transport are contained in this document.

Calculate the environmental costs of your holiday with lots of choices of different ways of travelling using this interactive site from the Open University.

Chapter 3 of this UK government report has a set of graphs showing how fuel use for transport is changing as well as other information on petroleum production.

Everything you needed to know about transport in the UK and who uses it in a government report from the Department of Transport.

Ways of reducing the impact of transport on air quality and climate change
Transport for London has been running a pilot study using buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The pdf of the infrastructure offers a good diagram.

Biofuels is another option. The BBC has a summary of the issues.

Information on the different types of biofuel can be found on the French Petroleum Institute site.

A life cycle evaluation of the sustainability of electric and hybrid cars is shown on this site.

The Institute of Chemical Engineers has produced a paper on sustainability indicators. This is more detailed than we need but provides a useful list of the factors that might need to be considered in measuring environmental impact, not specifically about transport.

Predictions of future demand
A white paper from the Department for Transport on ideas for the future of transport in Britain.

An article on the BBC site about some futuristic ideas for transport.

This New Scientist special report on energy, with lots of statistics and articles about different fuels, conventional and experimental.

Last updated: 2 November 2007