Seemingly the world’s toughest emission standard, the £10 Toxicity Charge (T-Charge) to help tackle London’s air pollution and get older more polluting cars off the roads, was introduced by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, on Monday 23 October.
From 7am drivers of older, more polluting petrol and the dirtiest diesel vehicles will pay the new T-Charge plus the Congestion Charge (C-Charge) – a total of £21.50 (£10 T-Charge and £11.50 C-Charge) every weekday they drive in the zone from 7am-6pm.
Up to 34,000 polluting vehicles every month could be liable for the T-Charge, which affects those that do not meet the Euro 4 standards for both PM and NOx emissions. Since 1 January 2017 these polluting vehicles have made around 2.6 million trips within the zone, contributing to London’s toxic air.
Pre-Euro 4 vehicles are typically those registered before 2006 that are approximately over 12 years old, but TfL advise anyone who has a car registered before 2008 to check if their vehicle is eligible for the charge. To help motorists, TfL has a free online vehicle checker available on its website www.tfl.gov.uk/t-charge. Over the last six months more than 153,000 people have already checked to find out if their vehicle will be affected.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched the T-Charge to tackle London’s air pollution and prepare Londoners for the early introduction of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, which he is proposing to introduce as early as April 2019 and which will affect thousands more vehicles in the existing congestion zone, including all diesel vehicles that do not meet Euro 6 standards.
Steps to tackle a health crisis
Poor air quality is causing a public health crisis in the capital. Recent health data has shown 7.9 million Londoners – nearly 95 per cent of the population – live in areas exceeding the World Health Organisation guidelines on toxic air quality particles (known as PM2.5). It is estimated that air pollution contributes to thousands of premature deaths each year in London, as well as having effects over the course of our lives, from smaller lungs in our children to greater risk of dementia and strokes when we get older.
Khan said: “As Mayor I am determined to take urgent action to help clean up London’s lethal air. The shameful scale of the public health crisis London faces, with thousands of premature deaths caused by air pollution, must be addressed.
“Today marks a major milestone in this journey with the introduction of the T-Charge to encourage motorists to ditch polluting, harmful vehicles.
“London now has the world’s toughest emission standard with older more polluting vehicles paying up to £21.50 a day to drive in the centre of the city. The T-charge is a stepping stone to the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, which could be introduced as early as 2019.
“This is the time to stand up and join the battle to clear the toxic air we are forced to breathe. I am transforming our bus fleet, getting rid of the oldest polluting taxis and creating healthier streets that will leave a lasting legacy for our children. But I can’t do this alone. I urgently need government to step up and face their responsibilities by delivering a diesel scrappage fund and a Cleaner Air Act that is fit for purpose. I also need Londoners to work with me so we can phase out the use of the dirtiest polluting vehicles from our roads.“
Since Khan announced the T-Charge in February motorists are already making changes with TfL monitoring data revealing that the daily number of older more polluting vehicles driving into the Congestion Zone has decreased by about 15 per cent. TfL expects that the T-Charge will result in a further drop, with around 40 per cent of motorists upgrading their vehicles and around 10 per cent switching to alternatives like public transport in the first year. TfL will use a camera-based mechanism for enforcement of the T-Charge, monitoring both diesel and petrol vehicles.
With over half of air pollutants in the capital caused by road transport and a fall in the UK sales of diesel vehicles, the Mayor wants to encourage people to make fewer journeys in polluting vehicles, and consider ditching the dirtiest diesels for greener methods of transport including using public transport, walking or cycling.
Gareth Powell, TfL’s Director of Strategy, said: “We are moving quickly on multiple fronts to improve air quality in the Capital. The T-Charge shows that London is leading the way with the toughest pollution standard of any world city, which will be further strengthened with the introduction of the Ultra Low Emission Zone. We are encouraged that people appear to be heeding these initiatives and finding more environmentally friendly ways to travel. This is the bedrock on which the Mayor’s ambitious plan for a zero emission city by 2050 is built.”
Other measures
The T-Charge is seemingly just one of a wide range of measures Khan is introducing to improve London’s toxic air quality – from doubling funding spent on tackling air quality to £875million (over the next five years) and consulting on an earlier introduction of the central London ULEZ in 2019, to developing proposals for a London-wide Euro VI standard for heavy vehicles in 2020 and expanding the ULEZ up to the North/South Circular roads for cars, vans and motorcycles in 2021.
Prof. Stephen Holgate, from the Royal College of Physicians said: “We now know that air pollution has a substantial impact on many chronic long-term conditions, increasing strokes and heart attacks in susceptible individuals. The implementation of the T-charge is a positive step towards cleaning up London’s air and it is showing to the world that it is possible to change behaviours in order to reduce the harms from high polluting vehicles. Such actions will improve the air quality in our capital and in time will save lives.’
Rosie Rogers, clean air campaigner at Greenpeace said: “It’s just not possible to clean up London’s air without cleaning up London’s roads, and that’s why we support the Mayor’s first steps to tackle air pollution by introducing the T-charge. London now joins Paris, Copenhagen and many other progressive cities in taking urgent steps towards removing polluting diesel cars from their streets. The ball is now in the court of our national government to grasp the urgency of the crisis and take more meaningful action to reduce the illegal levels of air pollution seriously harming people’s health across the UK.”
Dr Penny Woods, Chief Executive of the British Lung Foundation, said:”The T-charge is an important step from the Mayor of London to deter our most polluting and harmful vehicles from entering Central London. We know toxic air can have a devastating impact on our health. This is why we look forward to seeing the Mayor go further and launch the Ultra-Low Emission Zone. However, if we are ever going to properly tackle air pollution the Government must commit to a fair and ambitious new Clean Air Act.”
Richard Jackson, Director of Sustainability for University College London (UCL) Estates, said:“ We are delighted to welcome the Mayor Sadiq Khan to UCL and the UCL Nursery today. UCL is committed to helping to tackle air pollution and to create an environment for London in which children, students and staff breathe cleaner, healthier air. As a London-based university with a successful, popular nursery, we share the concern and attention he is giving this issue. We believe the T-Charge could be a significant move in helping to improve the air quality in London. This supports our own commitment to improve air quality and safeguard our UCL and wider London community.”
Simon Gillespie, Chief Executive at the British Heart Foundation, said:“ Dangerous levels of air pollution in London are damaging the heart health of the public – both healthy individuals and especially those with heart disease. There is an urgent need to protect Londoners from inhaling toxic air – particularly from small particles in diesel fumes which our research shows increases the risk of potentially fatal heart attacks and strokes. We welcome this bold action from the Mayor and hope that he continues to prioritise cleaning up London’s harmful air.”
