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The Guardian has a report which says that four of the world's biggest cities are to ban diesel vehicles from their centres within the next decade, as a means of tackling air pollution, with campaigners urging other city leaders to follow suit.
The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Athens and Mexico City announced plans on Friday to take diesel cars and vans off their roads by 2025.
[...] "Soot from diesel vehicles is among the big contributors to ill health and global warming," added Helena Molin Valdés, head of the United Nations' climate and clean air coalition, noting that more than nine out of 10 people around the globe live where air pollution exceeds World Health Organisation safety limits.
Miguel Ángel Mancera, mayor of Mexico City, said increasing investments in public transport would also help clean the city's air, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Giorgos Kaminis, mayor of Athens, said his goal was to remove all cars from the city centre. The city authorities will also work with national governments and manufacturers, and promote electric vehicles and cleaner transport.
Recent research has uncovered the scale of the problem, with 3 million premature deaths a year attributed to dirty air, as well as millions of other illnesses, particularly in children.
We seem to have a bunch of bad choices for medium term transport - carbon dioxide or nitrogen dioxide, direct pollution (vehicles) or upstream pollution (power stations).
Diesel trucks and buses seem to have urea containers - maybe they are needed in more cars? Adblue retro-fits for everyone?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 07 2016, @01:33PM
Outright bans work, technical solutions (like functional pollution control devices) are much harder to enforce.
A subtext of the diesel ban in the city centers is traffic control. There's no practical way to increase capacity in the city centers, so banning a major class of vehicle will free up the roads for others, though it will be interesting to see how much backlash happens with big trucks getting off-loaded to multiple smaller vehicles for last-mile delivery.
Global warming and health are the poster children, but I doubt they were the deciding factor for even 10% of the lawmakers who voted for this.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:26PM
> so banning a major class of vehicle will free up the roads for others, though it will be interesting to see how much backlash
The interesting backlash will be when all that empty road space gets filled with cars. Plenty of people avoid driving in the city because of congestion. Take away the congestion and you create an incentive for people to drive... creating congestion. Still, petrol / electric congestion is at least better for air quality than diesel congestion. Either way these diesel bans need to be backed up by serious investment in public transport, cycle lanes, pedestrian access etc to keep city dwellers away from the steering wheel as far as possible.
> happens with big trucks getting off-loaded to multiple smaller vehicles for last-mile delivery.
DRONES! LITTLE DRONES! BIG DRONES! DRONES LAUNCHED FROM AIRSHIPS!
Seriously, although they don't suit every scenario, drones could be a part of the last-mile solution. The tech and business model seems to be a few years off yet, but then so is the diesel ban deadline.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:33PM
Yay! replace the low-frequency noise pollution of the diesels with the high-frequency whine of hexacopters!
Plus, you get to be in more even databases as the drone cameras record everything "just in case".
Also, note the name of the cities: narrow streets will make things fun, especially when they hang all kinds of shiny decorations this time of the year.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:02PM
Drones are not a solution. You are also quite ignorant of logistics. The majority of vans arent out delivering Amazon packages. What about plumbers, contractors, electricians, roofers, machinery repairmen, entertainment and a million other types of service businesses that rely on vans to move equipment and supplies?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:40PM
Let them eat cake, or ride Uber, or walk - yea, that's the ticket, have your plumber hump the pipe in from the city limits on his back.
If this really happens, you'll just get the diesel trucks converted to gasoline engines.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 08 2016, @12:26PM
> you'll just get the diesel trucks converted to gasoline engines.
Yeah, I think that's the whole point. Gasoline or electric.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 08 2016, @12:24PM
And you appear to be quite ignorant of reading. Look again. I wrote "could be PART OF the solution."
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday December 08 2016, @12:33PM
True. I did somewhat overlook that part. But lets be honest, the drones! drones! drones! hand waiving certainly makes it sound as if the GP was only focused on last mile for small package delivery, a fraction of all van and truck traffic in major cities. It's a small part of the solution which also overlooks the logistics problems of higher density areas such as how does a drone deliver a package to frank smith on the fifteenth floor of a high rise? Drones are great for suburban areas where it can safely land on a person front porch or lawn or even yard to deliver a small box. But once you have multi dwelling buildings, it becomes almost impossible to deliver by drone.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 08 2016, @06:39PM
That's not really an argument against drones though as trucks often don't solve that problem either. In my apartment complex, only UPS gets anywhere *close* to delivering to my door -- they don't deliver to my *floor*, but they'll at least get it to the front door of the building. Which a drone could do just as well (or right on the roof for buildings with roof access.) But USPS and FedEx don't even deliver to the building, they take everything to the management office down the street. Or worse, they don't even attempt that, they deliver to the post office. I've even had FedEx just leave stuff *at the back door of the local post office* and expect me to walk down there and pick it up (which the post office was pretty pissed about too since they weren't paid to handle that delivery). If the drone can land anywhere within the same city block of the target that'll be just as good as many delivery trucks. If they can get it within a mile of my home at a time I specify that would be *far* superior to current methods IMO.
A large office building that has specific policies in place for giving access to couriers *might* get deliveries direct to the right floor; but that means the building owner is already putting in extra effort to enable those deliveries, so there's no reason they couldn't also put a drone target on the roof or whatever. Buildings like that generally have their own internal mail system which could be leveraged as well.