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London Low Emission Zone


edcayton

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As of today it will cost me £100 per day to take my van into the LEZ. To all intents and purposes this means I can use the M25, but cannot venture inside it.

 

I am thinking of those who have to rent vans to take layouts to shows such as the Ally Pally and may not be familiarwith this new legislation. The TfL web site states that all roads have a sign as you enter the zone, but I am aware of some that don't.

 

Beware!

 

Ed

 

I can still get to the Ally Pally in my 40 year old MG which isn't even tested for emissions in the MOT!

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Posted · Hidden by Tony_S, January 12, 2012 - No reason given
Hidden by Tony_S, January 12, 2012 - No reason given

those with desiel engines after 2003 and land rovers as long as the v5c has the car type as estate is exempt as well as petrol engine vans and pre 1973 vehicles dont have to pay the lez see the tfl lez website.

This link may be helpful.

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The LEZ is nothing new, its just the regs get tougher every year or so. Older 7.5 Tonners have been banned for a while.

 

Euro V (Current) is a nightmare for some M-fers. some are pulling out of the market as they cannot produce diesel engines to meet the spec. Even Ford's new Transit has struggled and now costs over £1500 more.

 

I think if you are hiring a van, you need to make them aware that you will be going into London, and if you are borrowing a work van, check it meets the spec. No doubt TFL are raking in the cash right now with so many being caught out.

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The idiocy of the policy is that it's only commercial vehicles which are penalised. Many 4x4s and luxury cars can produce similar pollution levels to a small lorry yet are completely exempt from the charge. Successive levels of emissions legislation have added cost and invariably increased fuel consumption, E6 is likely to add between 8 and £12,000 to the cost of a lorry, add up to 350kg to the weight thus reducing payload and efficiency, and probably increase fuel consumption further.

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A company I was working for got stung by this. They had a new customer in central London with a big order for drainage products. Myself and another driver duly delivered them spending nights out at the delivery site and coming back the next day. In all three round trips per wagon... which were older DAFs that failed to meat the stringent emissions zone stuff. The company were hit by charges per day per vehicle for delivering the goods that seriously ate into their profit margin. It left them wishing that they had just flipped off the new business, and they were adamant that they wouldn't repeat the fiasco.

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In reality, I don't believe it will make a jot of difference to the environment. Green zealousness just seems to be the new acceptable Fascism.

 

Well we had better hope it does. IIRC it was introduced as London has big problems meeting the EU air quality rules. If we don't get local air pollution under control in London then ultimately the UK gets whopping great fines from the EU (and that is without even mentioning the social cost of localised air pollution).

 

I award you the Godwin's Law award for this thread...

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Well we had better hope it does. IIRC it was introduced as London has big problems meeting the EU air quality rules. If we don't get local air pollution under control in London then ultimately the UK gets whopping great fines from the EU (and that is without even mentioning the social cost of localised air pollution).

 

I award you the Godwin's Law award for this thread...

 

Whereas I would be honoured to accept this award and would like to thank my family for their unfailing support, my colleagues who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes and always had faith in my endeavours, i realise that I am an unworthy recipient as Godwin's Law refers to Nazism and not Fascism.

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California has to all intents and purposes outlawed the diesel engine and that has resulted in vehicles such as buses having to use LPG or equivalents. Is there any dispensation for using bio fuel?

 

North American diesel and European diesel are significantly different - NA diesel is a lot less refined and hence a much more significant polluter. This is one of the reasons that diesel cars haven't taken off in NA - most European diesel motors need significant work to be able to operate on the lower-quality NA diesel (It is one of the reasons that the 2nd generation Smart car has a gasolinepetrol motor over here). The vast majority of road diesel use in North America is in large trucks (HGVs).

 

California is also a law unto itself (and a big enough market that it can get away with it). Anyone who has seen Los Angeles smog would understand the forces that drive their legislation (although building a major city in an area of thermal inversion that contains an oilfield and a bunch of refineries doesn't help).

 

Note that bio-fuel doesn't necessarily reduce emissions (bio-diesel, for instance).

 

I watch these developments in London with concern, since our local politicians tend to hold them up as successful ways to reduce the number of cars in Toronto even though there really isn't have an effective alternative for a lot of the traffic.

 

Adrian

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What are the costs of having exhaust filters retrofitted? I've read that this is a possible option for older vehicles. It does strike me that overall, the localised environmental benefits of LEZ might well be outweighed by forcing the premature scrapping of vehicles prematurely and replacing them with new.

I also suspect it's got a lot to do with achieving improved air quality for the 2012 Olympics.

 

Personally, I'm in on the fence with this. I have sympathy with the owners of vehicles which still have a long service life but have been hit by this legislation. On the other hand, there have been times during summer heat waves where some fresher air in London would be very welcome.

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On a personal level of course I sympathise with those whose business it affects.

 

I don't know if the LEZ is the most sensible solution, but there can be no getting away from the facts that something has to be done. NOx emissions (pumped out by cars, vans and problematically for W London - planes) are one of the highest contributors to various lung problems. Add in the emissions targets I previously mentioned and Boris can't afford not to do something.

 

There was a report in one of the papers today (poss the Independent) that Putney had exceeded its air emission limits for the year in the first 4 days of January...

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Not true. They move as a "plume" - it just moves faster (and goes somewhere else). Look at the volcanic dust clouds from Iceland, they only dispersed after hundreds of miles, and still had "hot" spots of dense pollution, it doesn't just disappear.

 

Best, Pete.

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The LEZ is just one challenge facing commerical vehicle operators in London. The London Boroughs Transport Scheme (known more colloquially as the London lorry ban) causes a variety of problems for those of us who earn a few pennies behind the wheel of lorries and coaches. Only last Saturday I found myself in South London, trying to deliver to a location I last visited in 2002. My official directions were misleading and I had no alternative but to find somewhere safe to stop so I could check my street atlas - not an easy proposition in London with a 13.6m artic. Accidentally missing a turning could land drivers in trouble so it's a real no-win situation all round.

 

As a transport professional and policy wonk I understand the reasons behind these schemes. Unfortunately, those that implement them invariably have no experience of the problems at the sharp end. London wants deliveries to its shops and punters brought in to its attractions, but often makes it incredibly difficult for the people who provide these services.

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Not true. They move as a "plume" - it just moves faster (and goes somewhere else). Look at the volcanic dust clouds from Iceland, they only dispersed after hundreds of miles, and still had "hot" spots of dense pollution, it doesn't just disappear.

 

Best, Pete.

 

Sorry Pete, but I never said disappear - I said disperse (which is very different and is effectively the NOx being diluted in the atmosphere). The alternatives are of course the NOx reacts with water to form acid rain or with ozone.

 

As to whether it moves as a plume - that depends entirely on the density of the pollutant - the original Icelandic ash was of the right density to move as a plume, a second Icelandic volcanic plume was of a different density and even though more material was emitted it did not cause such widespread problems (though airlines were also more informed about what their engines could handle).

 

NOx is a relatively localised problem compared to some pollutants.

 

Cheers, Mike

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It's OK - I am an environmental scientist and do a lot of work on point source emissions (though mostly about preventing them rather than modelling what happens after emission). The wiki article gives a nice overview of the different types of emission source - I suspect for London the problem is a mixture of line and point sources. A point source (particularly a large one) will potentially give you a plume, less so for other types of sources as the emissions are typically much more diffuse (hence why I said they disperse).

 

Of course all of this depends on a multitude of other factors eg wind, turbulence, temperature etc etc.

 

Cheers, Mike

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