Cars, buses and freight trucks are the principal cause of air pollution in over 95 percent of legally-designated air quality management areas in Britain, a research team from Bristol reported Tuesday.

Current estimates show that over 50,000 deaths a year can be attributed to an air pollution epidemic in Britain, the report revealed ahead of a debate on Wednesday at the Royal Geographical Society(with the Institute of British Geographers) annual conference.

Dr. Tim Chatterton and Prof. Graham Parkhurst from the University of the West of England in Bristol say transport planning in Britain is not sufficiently taking into account the environmental impacts of transport choices.

The two academics looked at policy and practice activities since a parliamentary environment act in 1995 committed Britain to improving air quality to internationally accepted standards.

They said measurements in the real environment show that little improvement has been achieved in the past two decades.

Chatterton and Parkhurst have carried out a review to identify the underlying reasons why air pollution concentrations from road transport in Britain have shown little to-no reduction over the last 21 years.

Their study claims that transport planners in Britain are not taking the environmental impacts of transport choices sufficiently into account.

They say road traffic accidents continue to remain the primary concern of transport planners while, "at best, air pollution has been designated a shared priority between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Transport."

Parkhurst said: "Air pollution is perhaps the grossest manifestation of a general failure of UK transport planning to take the environmental impacts of transport choices sufficiently into account."

"Insufficient relevant priority has been given within the sector responsible for most relevant emissions -- transport policy and planning -- which has instead prioritized safety and economic growth," he added.

The academics say their study identifies a strategic policy tone which continues to signal and provide for the private car as central to national transport policy.

Added to this, they say, is limited government regulation and financial support for alternative modes of transport, as well as more low emissions zones in towns and cities.

Their report says that a failure to recognize that existing polluting vehicles are being replaced only slowly, the only sure way to bring about changes in pollution levels is to reduce vehicle use.

"There is a corresponding lack of emphasis on 'push' behavior change policies, to encourage walking and cycling in particular. Instead, policies for behavior change mostly rely on voluntary measures, which are as a result not very effective," the two academics say in their report.

Households in poorer areas of Britain's towns and cities tend to be exposed to much higher levels of air pollution, even though they contribute much less to the traffic pollution principally through driving less.

Parkhurst and Chatterton will tell the conference that their findings confirm the need for air quality to be promoted as a public health priority issue in Britain.

"Air pollution-related morbidity and mortality are at epidemic levels and, although less obvious, are more significant than road transport collisions as a cause of death and injury," they said.

Source : XINHUA