A Novel Approach to Estimating the Dose of Ambient Air Pollution during Cycling Commutes from Home to School and Route Optimizations

Abstract

Students’ exposure to air pollution during active commuting between home and school has been linked with numerous adverse health outcomes. An accurate assessment of cycling students’ dose of air pollution during commutes could help mitigate the adverse health effect of exposure. However, up to date, it is still challenging to fill this research gap. In this study, we proposed a modeling framework to estimate cycling students’ terrain-based dosage of ambient nitrogen dioxide (NO2) during home-school commutes for the very first time. The approach was further applied to compare the benefit and costs of different route choices and examine exposure justice issues during students’ cycling from home to school in Auckland, New Zealand. Results show that most of the cycling students could find an alternative lowest-dose route, and for around 25% of them, a 1% increase in route length was associated with a more than 1% decrease in NO2 dosage. Evidence demonstrates that exposure inequalities existed to some extent during students’ cycling commutes. This study could deepen our understanding of cyclists’ exposure, and some recommendations were also provided to optimize students’ daily active commute routes.