Driving in Madrid: new anti-pollution protocol

To try to solve the emissions problem, the City Council has reformed its anti-pollution protocol. Thus, from Monday the anti-pollution protocol has been tightened to mitigate, if possible, the harmful fumes from the traffic jams that the council itself is going to create. But is this the solution to the traffic jams and pollution that the City Council itself is going to create with its mobility policies?

Since February 2016, Madrid has been applying a series of control measures on road traffic in order to reduce the episodes of air pollution caused by nitrogen dioxide emissions in the city at times when pollution levels rise and exceed the established limits. These limits are, in Madrid, even stricter than those set by European legislation, in an attempt by the municipal corporation to reduce the city’s atmospheric pollution. And now, since this past Monday, the restrictions imposed by the protocol have been expanded.

From now on, in Madrid the measures will be applied according to the DGT’s ECO stickers —abandoning the previous system of even or odd number plates—, within the five scenarios established (one more than existed until now), and the restrictions are also extended to motorcycles and mopeds, vehicles that until now could circulate freely.

The protocols will be activated as soon as the pre-warning pollution limits are exceeded. The protocol establishes three levels: pre-warning, warning and alert. The first occurs when two pollution control stations in the same area simultaneously exceed 180 micrograms/m3 for two consecutive hours, or when three stations in the network simultaneously exceed that figure for three consecutive hours. Under those same conditions, the warning level is activated when 200 micrograms/m3 is exceeded, and the alert level when 400 micrograms/m3 is exceeded. These values are stricter than those proposed by the European Union, in an attempt by the council to reduce the city’s pollution to the limits set by the EU.

Depending on the different alert levels, up to five possible action scenarios will apply, whose restrictions you can see in the attached chart. If you drive in Madrid it is advisable to know them to avoid being fined.

The Madrid City Council does not know the effect of the protocols

The council led by Manuela Carmena is the first to acknowledge that it does not know the effects its measures are having on pollution levels since they were introduced. On September 21, the Directorate General for Sustainability and Environmental Control issued a report stating that “it is very difficult to quantify exactly the reduction in the concentration of the different pollutants resulting from the application of each of the measures established in the protocol”… “but it has been possible to verify that the speed limitation and parking and vehicle circulation restriction measures applied reduce the traffic intensity of motor vehicles, the main contributors to nitrogen dioxide levels”. According to the Environment and Mobility Area of the City Council itself, applying scenario 2 of the protocol only reduced traffic by between 3 and 5 percent.

And now, according to “El Confidencial”, an independent study prepared by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid has calculated the effects that the application of the protocols really had on pollution in Madrid during a high-pollution episode in the capital.

Using the data provided by the municipal council itself, the study tried to reconstruct the nitrogen dioxide levels existing on December 28 and 29, 2016, the date on which the protocol was applied for the first time. The reconstruction also took into account other variables, such as the influence of the wind, the dispersion of polluting emissions, traffic conditions in the city during those days, … Data taken from more than three thousand detectors located across the city’s streets. All the data were processed at the Madrid Supercomputing and Visualization Center.

The result of this process shows that during the first day of application of the restrictions set out in the protocol, when parking was only prohibited in the city centre, traffic fell by 10 percent, a figure that rose to 19 percent during the second day. As for the emissions detected by the city’s sensors, these came close to a 4 percent average reduction, with peaks of up to 9 percent during the day.

In total, the result obtained was a reduction of barely 3 percent in emissions, which confirms that the measures adopted cause greater harm to citizens than benefits, since they are barely significant in achieving the intended benefits.

And now, on the same operating basis, the City Council, with the city’s main arteries submerged in interminable roadworks that paralyze the entire city centre day after day (c/ Atocha, c/ Alcalá, c/ Gran Vía, … some of which have already lasted four years just to change some pavements, the same time it took to build the M-30 tunnels), is creating the Madrid Central zone, a new experiment with which it aims to eliminate as far as possible road traffic through the city centre.

Madrid Central is a large residential priority and zero-emissions area made up of all the roads within the perimeter established by Calle Alberto Aguilera, Glorieta de Ruiz Jimenez, Carranza, Glorieta de Bilbao, Sagasta, Plaza de Alonso Martinez, Génova, Plaza de Colón, Paseo de Recoletos, Plaza de Cibeles, Paseo del Prado, Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo, Paseo del Prado, Plaza del Emperador Carlos V, Ronda de Atocha, Ronda de Valencia, Glorieta de Embajadores, Ronda de Toledo, Glorieta de la Puerta de Toledo, Ronda de Segovia, Cuesta de la Vega, Calle Mayor, Calle Bailén, Plaza de España (side continuation Cuesta de San Vicente, Calle Princesa and Calle Serrano Jover.

On all of them, the City Council has delimited the interior zone by painting a double red line on the asphalt —on which parking is not allowed— and has installed a complex photographic control system for vehicle entry and exit to identify and fine those not authorized to drive on the streets of Madrid Central. Although the restrictions do not apply on the streets mentioned above (except the parking one already cited), on the streets inside that perimeter only residents of the area, low-polluting vehicles (DGT labels 0 and ECO), taxis, VTCs, public transport vehicles and motorcycles will be able to circulate. Non-residents are only authorized to drive when they have a private parking space where they can park their vehicle.

Madrid Central will come into force this coming November. During the first two months it will be for informational purposes, that is, vehicles that do not comply with the regulations and enter the perimeter without being authorized to do so will not be fined. They will be notified of the violation but not sanctioned. It will be from February onwards that violations will carry the corresponding fine, amounting to 90 euros, or 45 if the early payment option is taken.

Since last August, technicians from Madrid City Council have been painting and signposting the aforementioned Madrid Central zone and installing the image capture and offending vehicle control system. During that process, the poor signage of the roadworks has caused numerous incidents and several accidents at the access points. The speed bumps installed on the main access streets were poorly signposted for a time and caused more than one vehicle to literally fly off when driving over them before they had been painted. And that is without counting the money thrown away when, on some streets, the speed-reducing bump was placed exactly on top of the large sign painted on the asphalt to indicate the start of Madrid Central.

If this is how it has started, we fear the worst once it is fully in operation, because it seems the City Council is putting the cart before the horse and without taking into account the counterproductive policies being applied in other areas. Because how can it be explained that the City Council wants to develop collective transport while the immediate step is the enactment of a Royal Decree that prevents the activity of VTCs, a service that has been very favourably received by the population in city centres? It is at least strange that two governments of the same political stripe legislate in opposite directions.

And if we consider that during the morning rush hours in September there are numerous metro stations where passengers push to the limit to get onto the train carriages, and the same happens on many EMT bus lines and on the Consorcio de Transportes metropolitan lines (some of which carry passengers in excess of their authorized capacity), will Madrid have a public transport network sufficient to achieve the results being pursued?

Madrid, capital with the best carsharing network

Madrid has the best sustainable carsharing network in the world (car2go, emov, Zity, Wible, Respiro, Bluemove, …) and transport options in the city are growing with the arrival of motorsharing companies, as well as Bici Mad and the recent entry of new bicycle and scooter rental companies into the capital’s mobility landscape. But is all this enough to improve the mobility of Madrilenians and the quality of the air they breathe?

The solution will have to be judged over time, when we can analyze the data provided by the measures adopted. Measures which, although based on the new DGT regulation classifying vehicles according to their environmental label, we do not believe are very appropriate, since the most effective approach would be to act on the types of vehicles we have in the city without needing to restrict their free movement to limits that, as we have already said, are not beneficial at all.

Thus, instead of demonizing all diesel vehicles —the most modern of which not only comply with all emissions regulations but also clearly pollute less than equivalent petrol cars— what should be done is to encourage the replacement of older models with modern vehicles. Promoting the sale of zero-emission and ECO vehicles in exchange for scrapping old diesel and petrol vehicles could be a good start. Reducing VAT and eliminating the registration tax for alternative-fuel vehicles could also help, encouraging the use of these models with measures such as free surface parking or free charging at municipal facilities or creating a wide network of charging points strategically located in different areas of the city, both in the centre and in the other districts, could be good solutions. As would encouraging the use of public transport by creating large free, controlled car parks at the city entrances that discourage people entering the city from doing so in their own car, or reducing the price of public transport services instead of increasing them every year, if we really want to convince our citizens that Madrid aspires to enjoy clean, efficient and healthy mobility.