Cyclists’ exposure to air pollution, noise, and greenery: a population-level spatial analysis approach

International Journal of Health Geographics

Research

Joose Helle¹  Elias Willberg²  Tuuli Toivonen²  Age Poom³ 

[1] Digital Geography Lab, Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland;Digital Geography Lab, Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland;Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, Institute of Urban and Regional Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland;Digital Geography Lab, Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland;Mobility Lab, Department of Geography, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia;Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, Institute of Urban and Regional Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland;

关键词: Environmental exposure;    Active travel;    Route choice;    Air pollution;    Noise;    Greenery;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12942-023-00326-7

 received in 2022-10-18, accepted in 2023-01-28,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Urban travel exposes people to a range of environmental qualities with significant health and wellbeing impacts. Nevertheless, the understanding of travel-related environmental exposure has remained limited. Here, we present a novel approach for population-level assessment of multiple environmental exposure for active travel. It enables analyses of (1) urban scale exposure variation, (2) alternative routes’ potential to improve exposure levels per exposure type, and (3) by combining multiple exposures. We demonstrate the approach’s feasibility by analysing cyclists’ air pollution, noise, and greenery exposure in Helsinki, Finland. We apply an in-house developed route-planning and exposure assessment software and integrate to the analysis 3.1 million cycling trips from the local bike-sharing system. We show that especially noise exposure from cycling exceeds healthy thresholds, but that cyclists can influence their exposure by route choice. The proposed approach enables planners and individual citizens to identify (un)healthy travel environments from the exposure perspective, and to compare areas in respect to how well their environmental quality supports active travel. Transferable open tools and data further support the implementation of the approach in other cities.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

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