Congestion Charge reducing Congested Chests?

Cities all around the world are watching London’s groundbreaking congestion charge experiment to see how effective it is in cutting traffic and improving London’s environment.

Its impact on air pollution is also being closely monitored in London, by the Environmental Research Group, part of The School of Health & Life Sciences at King’s College London, which has over 80 monitoring sites across London.

This year, for the first time, they are assessing the impact of the Congestion Charging scheme on both air quality and the health of the population, with funding from the Health Effects Institute in the USA. This is a combined study of both the toxicology of pollutants and an epidemiological study of their impact on health.

While the monitoring group measures and collects pollution particles samples, the laboratories study the impact of the particles collected on samples of the fluid which lines the lungs, to see how dangerous they are to public health.