Low emission zones: Effects on alternative-fuel vehicle uptake and fleet CO2 emissions

TL;DR

This study evaluates a low-emission zone's impact on vehicle registration shifts towards alternative fuels and its effectiveness in reducing fleet CO2 emissions, revealing limited progress in zero emission vehicle adoption.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on how LEZs influence vehicle registration patterns and CO2 emissions, highlighting the limited adoption of zero emission vehicles.

Findings

Significant increase in alternative fuel vehicle registrations, mainly fossil fuel and hybrid.

No significant decrease in average CO2 emissions of new vehicles.

LEZs stimulate low emission vehicle adoption but not enough zero emission vehicles.

Abstract

This study analyses the actual effect of a representative low-emission zone (LEZ) in terms of shifting vehicle registrations towards alternative fuel technologies and its effectiveness for reducing vehicle fleet CO2 emissions. Vehicle registration data is combined with real life fuel consumption values on individual vehicle model level, and the impact of the LEZ is then determined via an econometric approach. The increase in alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) registration shares due to the LEZ is found to be significant but fosters rather fossil fuel powered AFV and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles than zero emission vehicles. This is reflected in the average CO2 emissions of newly registered vehicles, which do not decrease significantly. In consequence, while the LEZ is an effective measure for stimulating the shift towards low emission vehicles, the support of non-electric AFV as low emission vehicles jeopardizes its effectiveness for decarbonizing the vehicle fleet.