Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Legislation Versus Health and Environmental Effects

Abstract

Ambient air quality is a very topical issue as it has an important influence on human health.Exposure to atmospheric pollutants may result in various adverse health effects. Theimpacts of air pollution are not confined only to human health but also to the environmentas a whole. In that regard, vehicular traffic emissions are especially important, because itsvolume is increasing every year. Consequently pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides (NOx),carbon monoxide (CO), particulate matter (PM), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs) are emitted into the atmosphere causing a significant decline of air quality acrossEurope, which results in hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year. In order toimprove the situation, the European Union has been defining legislation on ambient airquality with limits of the respective pollutants and aiming to increase the levels of publichealth protection. Despite reductions in emissions, concentrations of these pollutants remainhigh often above existing targets exposing populations to levels that reduce lifeexpectancy, cause premature death and widespread aggravation to health.In this chapter, various aspects of air pollution are discussed with specific emphasis onvehicular road traffic. An overview of the current legislation related to air quality is given.The work then focuses on the health impacts of important traffic related pollutants, withparticular focus on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The general description ofPAHs is presented with further discussion on their health and environmental impacts.