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

Daniel Albalate and Xavier Fageda

No 202222, IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics

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.

Keywords: Low Emission Zones; Congestion; Traffic; Access restrictions; Sustainability; Cities. JEL classification: R41; R11; R52. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2022-12, Revised 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-hea, nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2022/202222.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ira:wpaper:202222

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alicia García ().