Gatwick

Project details

Funding body: Gatwick Airport Ltd

Collaborators:

• Arup
• TNO
• Emissions Analytics
• Brook Cottage Consultants
• Clear Air Thinking
• Gatwick Airport Ltd

Dates: 1 October 2015 - 31 May 2016

Project summary

The EU limit value for NO2 was due to be reached by 1 January 2010. However, the UK remains non-compliant in 38 of 43 zones and agglomerations. As a consequence, in April 2015, the government was ordered by the UK Supreme Court to draw up new air quality plans to achieve the EU limit values in the shortest time possible. In response, the UK government consulted on a draft national Air Quality Plan (AQP), which estimated compliance with the EU Air Quality Directive by 2020 in all zones and agglomerations except London (compliance by 2025).

AQMRC was commissioned by Gatwick Airport Ltd to provide a technical review on the soundness of the UK Government's Draft and Final AQP, specifically regarding the reliability of the Computer Programme to Calculate Emissions from Road Transport (COPERT) data used in the modelling. Key additions and differences between the Draft Air Quality Plan (Draft AQP) and the Final AQP specifically relating to COPERT were reviewed and the information gaps that still need to be filled, identified. The areas in which the plan is considered optimistic were noted and the implications of the new Real World Driving (RDE) test on the Final AQP were documented.

Please email Dr Ben Williams at Ben3.Williams@uwe.ac.uk for more details.