Banning Diesel Vehicles in London: Is 2040 Too Late?

Moayad Shammut, Mengqiu Cao, Yuerong Zhang, Claire Papaix, Yuqi Liu and Xing Gao
Additional contact information
Moayad Shammut: School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand
Mengqiu Cao: School of Architecture and Cities, University of Westminster, London NW1 5LS, UK
Yuerong Zhang: Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London WC1H 0NN, UK
Claire Papaix: Department of Systems Management and Strategy, University of Greenwich, London SE10 9LS, UK
Yuqi Liu: Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China
Xing Gao: Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London WC1H 0NN, UK

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 18, 1-17

Abstract: Air pollution contributes to 9400 deaths annually in London and diesel vehicles are considered a major source of lethal air pollutants. Consequently, the UK government announced its intention to ban diesel vehicles by 2040 to achieve a sustainable zero-carbon road transport system. Since no empirical studies have used a bottom-up approach to seek Londoners’ views, it is therefore worth investigating the public opinion regarding this forthcoming ban. This paper aims to fill this research gap by taking London as a case study. A survey was designed, and fieldwork was conducted to distribute questionnaires to Londoners. Completed questionnaires were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings revealed that the majority of Londoners would be in favour of the ban if they were sufficiently exposed to the appropriate sources of information and were favourably disposed towards environmental protection measures. The results also showed that Londoners were more likely to switch to electric vehicles (EVs) if they were offered generous incentives and encouraged to use scrappage schemes. The present study makes a strong case for enforcing the ban well before 2040. The significance of this research is to provide clearer signals regarding the future of diesel vehicles, which in turn will strengthen the EV policy and uptake.

Keywords: low carbon technologies; low carbon transition; decarbonisation; zero carbon; air pollution; diesel ban; electric vehicles; transport policy; transport planning; London (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/18/3495/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/18/3495/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:18:p:3495-:d:266191

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().