A study carried out among professional drivers circulating in the city center of London confirms that the particles of pollution can be very present even inside the cars.
Numerous studies confirm the health risks associated with exposure to traffic pollution. It is less clear how professional drivers are affected and what steps can be taken to guard against health risks. Researchers from King’s College London and Queen Mary University of London set out to answer these questions in a new study. This demonstrates once again that car interiors in city centers are often very exposed to a high level of pollution.
“We think around a million people work in jobs like taxi drivers in the UK, so this is a widespread and underestimated problem,” said team member Shanon Lim. researcher and doctoral student at King’s College London.
Measure exposure to “black carbon”
140 professional drivers from different professions participated in the study. All drivers work in bustling London city center and were fitted with the black carbon monitoring boxes (Le Black Carbon (BC), also called “carbon soot”, is an air pollutant emitted during combustion reactions. These are primary particles. BC therefore forms a subcategory of PM2.5, namely particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 µm) for 96 hours. Each box was linked to a GPS device so that the researchers could measure the exposure to black carbon and identify the regions where the exposure is highest. Drivers were asked about their job, type of vehicle and whether they usually drive with the windows open or not.
The professional drivers participating in the study were exposed to approximately 4.1 micrograms of black carbon per cubic meter of air (μg/m3) while driving, an amount four times higher than that found in homes (1.1 μg/ m3) and higher than that measured at the roadside. The study also reveals that professional drivers were also exposed to extremely high peaks of black carbon exposure, often exceeding 100 µg/m3 and lasting up to half an hour.
The worst result for taxi drivers
Taxi drivers, had the worst outcome and are exposed to 6.5 micrograms of black carbon per cubic meter of air (6.5μg/m3) while driving while emergency service workers had the level of lowest exposure (2.8 μg/m3). Why taxi drivers face higher levels of black carbon compared to other professional drivers has not been precisely identified, but researchers have speculated that taxis often work in busy areas and so very polluted.
“Our study indicates that professional drivers are exposed to high levels of traffic pollution at work,” said Shannon Lim. “As these levels are higher than those we find at the side of the road, this implies that being inside a vehicle does not offer any protection, it is perhaps the opposite that is happening: pollution air can remain trapped inside the vehicle for a long time.”
Professional drivers are therefore advised to keep their windows closed to reduce exposure to pollution, and researchers are studying the effectiveness of air filters and other methods that can protect them from the risks of driving in harsh environments. polluted.
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