Abstract
Children walking to school are at a high risk of exposure to air pollution compared with other modes because of the time they spend in close proximity to traffic during their commute. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of a walker’s route choice on their exposure to ultrafine particles (UFP) on the walk to school. During morning commutes over a period of three weeks, exposure to UFP was measured along three routes: two routes were alongside both sides of a busy arterial road with significantly higher levels of traffic on one side compared to the other, and the third route passed through quiet streets (the background route). The results indicate that the mean exposure for the pedestrian walking along the background route was half the exposure experienced on the other two routes. Walkers on the trafficked side were exposed to elevated concentrations (>100,000 pt/cc) 2.5 times longer than the low-trafficked side. However, the duration of the elevated exposure for the background route was close to zero. Public health officials and urban planners may use the results of this study to promote healthier walking routes to schools, especially those planned as part of organized commutes.
Highlights
Governments have been promoting walking to school using initiatives such as the Walking School Bus (WSB), wherein an organized group of children walk to school along planned routes under the supervision of adult volunteers [1]
The results of this study provide an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of the effect of route choice in children’s exposure to ultrafine particles (UFP) while walking to school
Our analysis from the collected data on three WSB routes to school revealed that route choice can impact significantly on children’s exposure to UFP
Summary
Governments have been promoting walking to school using initiatives such as the Walking School Bus (WSB), wherein an organized group of children walk to school along planned routes under the supervision of adult volunteers [1]. WSBs have several benefits, including improvements in children’s physical and mental health and the reduction of cars, which contribute to air pollution around the school entrance [2]. One downside of children walking to school is their potential increase in risk of exposure to traffic-related air pollution. Children are at high risk because they breathe at a closer height to vehicle tailpipes, where the concentration of air pollutants is higher [6,7]. A study in Barcelona compared children (at 0.55 m height) and adults (at 1.70 m height), and found that children’s exposure to air pollution was 10% higher than that of adults [6]. (1300±± 500 pt/cc) pt/cc) was highest amount amount of background was measured measured on Day 1.
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