Mortality and morbidity costs of road traffic-based air pollution in Turkey

HIGHLIGHTS

• One business-as-usual and four alternative scenarios to reduce road-traffic based air pollution are analyzed in terms of emission, mortality and morbidity, and health costs.

• Maximum potential reductions for PM_2.5, PM₁₀, and NOx are estimated at 41%, 27%, 27%, respectively.

• Acute mortality can be reduced by a minimum of 9241 cases and a maximum of 19,396 in 2020–2030.

• A maximum of 803,328 Years of Life Lost can be saved compared with business-as-usual (BAU) as a total.

• The total potential health cost saving is between 112 billion and 252 billion TL compared with BAU.

Abstract

Government policies on renewing vehicle fleet by introducing newer, cleaner vehicles and removing old, polluting vehicles have significant impacts on air pollution. In this study, the estimated emissions of air pollutants that influence human health are reported together with health endpoints and corresponding mortality and morbidity costs under five alternative road transport policy scenarios, varying in scrapping rate and the shares of hybrid and electric vehicles. Using COPERT software, PM₁₀, PM_2.5, NO₂, and SO₂ emissions are determined for five scenarios. PM_2.5 is the most reduced pollutant (41%) if the government adopts the most progressive scenario, followed by PM₁₀ (27%) and NO₂ (27%). A total of a maximum of 19,396 premature deaths and 803,328 years of life lost could be saved, corresponding to 252 billion TL cost savings over the 2020–2030 period if the most drastic policy encouraging an introduction of the newer and cleaner vehicles is adopted.

Introduction

Ambient air pollution causes severe acute and chronic health problems such as premature death, heart diseases, lung cancer, and various respiratory illnesses (WHO, 2016). Road transport contributes to ambient air pollution significantly, especially in largely populated cities. According to European Environment Agency, road transport contributes 28% of NOx, 7.7% of PM₁₀, and 10% of PM_2.5 of ambient air pollution in European Union (EU) member states (EEA, 2019). In 2018, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from road vehicles in Turkey were estimated to be 78,907 ktons, which accounted for 15% of total emissions (Turkstat, 2020). Thus, road-transport-based emission in Turkey plays a significant role in contributing to global warming and urban air quality as well.

As of 2018, following an annual increase of about 5%, the number of vehicles in Turkey has reached almost 23 million, or 275 vehicles per 1000 people. Passenger cars' average age has also been 12.6 years, which is greater than the EU average of 10.8 years (ACEA, 2019). While the number of new vehicles (0–5 years) has been decreasing since 2016, the number of old vehicles (21+) is continuously increasing over time. In an effort to renew the average age of the vehicle fleet in Turkey and decrease the related emissions, a special consumption tax incentive of up to 10,000 Turkish Lira (TL) ($1 = 5.94 TL on December 31, 2019) was provided between March 27, 2018, and December 31, 2019, to the vehicle owners with age 16 and older to trade in their vehicles to be scrapped and purchase new and more fuel-efficient vehicles. Due to an incentive offered by the government, the number of vehicles sent for scrappage has reached over 180,000 during the same period, which was, on average, 50,000 in the last decade. Prior to this policy, the first incentive program was conducted in 2003 and 2004, which targeted the 20 years and older vehicles, and over 350,000 vehicles were sent for scrappage.

Based on the most current statistics, the share of gasoline, diesel, and LPG vehicles were accounted for 28%, 51%, and 21%, respectively. The demand for diesel-fueled vehicles has been increasing over the years in Turkey. Due to the increasing number of vehicles and the increasing share of diesel vehicles, specifically, NO_x and CO₂ emissions and fuel demand are expected to double by 2030, if we keep the course of our road transport as it is.

Some changes are expected in the distribution of engine technologies in the EU countries' vehicle fleet. In Germany, the Federal Administrative Court announced in 2018 that German cities could impose diesel driving bans, and in Stuttgart, for example, diesel cars with Euro 5 and earlier standards have been banned since 2020 (Wappelhorst, 2020). Similarly, restrictions such as Low Emission Zones have been (or will be) imposed on diesel vehicles in certain cities in England, France, and several other EU countries (Wappelhorst, 2020). Since European market situations heavily influence Turkey's automobile industry, it is expected that there will be lesser demand for diesel vehicles in Turkey in the coming years. Together with the emergence of hybrid and electric vehicles (EV), Turkey's vehicle fleet composition is expected to change dramatically over the next ten years.

In this study, road-traffic-based air pollution and the related health costs are analyzed for five different policy scenarios, including no policy situation (business as usual (BAU)) for the period between 2020 and 2030. Thus, this research aims to present the health cost and the number of lives saved by shifting our road transport from fossil-fuel based highly polluting vehicle fleet to new generation environmentally-friendly vehicles and suggesting the policy options to make such changes possible. The passenger car and light-duty trucks are covered in this study since the vehicles in these categories consist of 70% of Turkey's total vehicle fleet (Turkstat, 2019).

This study aims to enumerate the health impacts of road-traffic-based air pollution and clearly illustrate the consequences of the potential paths the government would adopt until 2030. In order to reach credible conclusions, the following steps have been taken. First, we forecasted the number of vehicle sales between 2020 and 2030 using an econometric model. Second, alternative scenarios with different shares of each vehicle type and scrapping rates are determined to estimate the number of vehicles between 2020 and 2030. Third, for each scenario, air pollution levels caused by emissions from road vehicles across the country were calculated using COPERT software (A European Road Transport Emission Inventory Model (Ntziachristos et al., 2009)) for the 2020–2030 period. The pollutants covered in COPERT are PM₁₀, PM_2.5, SO₂, NO₂, NO_x, NO, CO, CO₂, and VOC. Fourth, the emissions were converted to concentration and linked to air-pollution-related health endpoints using the exposure-response function. Lastly, the monetary values of mortality [value of a statistical life (VSL), the value of a statistical life year (VSLY)] and morbidity cases are calculated. In the end, we obtain the magnitude of health cost-savings, the numbers of saved lives and avoided illnesses for each scenario. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that delivers the monetary values of health benefits due to the improved road-traffic based air pollution for multiple road-transport policy scenarios, given the corresponding emission amounts for each scenario in Turkey, and a rare comprehensive study in the world as well. Our findings are expected to benefit decision-makers to predict the future consequences of alternative road-transport policies.

In the next section of the paper, previous studies on road emission determination, health impacts and external costs of air pollution, and road transport policies are summarized. The methodology and the data sources used in the study are explained in Section 3. The analyses' results are presented in Section 4, followed by the discussion and the conclusions section.