Personal Exposure to PM2.5 in the Massive Transport System of Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that public transport users can be exposed to high levels of pollution emitted from their own vehicles and nearby sources. The purpose of this research is to determine the personal exposure of passengers to PM2.5 inside the vehicles of the massive public transport of two of the main and more populated cities of Colombia, Bogotá and Medellín. TM (TransMilenio powered by diesel) and SITVA (electric and gas natural vehicles) were the systems studied. Were evaluated the integration of new vehicles with technologies Euro V and Euro VI in the TM system, the impact of the weekend effect on personal exposure into public transport (TM and SITVA), and the possible differences between personal exposure regarding the ways of the systems (mixed lane or exclusive lane for TM and SITVA). To measure PM2.5 levels, a DustTrak monitor previously calibrated was used. This measurement campaigns lasted for more than 80 hours and a mean of 17000 data of PM2.5 concentrations were obtained for each route. The personal dose was calculated based on the recorded data. The mean PM2.5 concentrations and personal dose found in the research for TM are 167 µg/m³ and 2.3 µg/min, respectively, while, for SITVA they are 41 µg/m³ and 0.53 µg/min, respectively. Therefore, SITVA users have a 5 times lower personal exposure to PM2.5 than TM users. It was also found that due to the poor proportion of new TM vehicles during the monitoring period, the personal exposure in the old vehicles and in the new ones is similar. In the case of SITVA, it was evidenced that the mixed lane contributes to a high personal exposure to PM2.5 than the exclusive one.