6 © Centre for Economics and Business Research 3. The experience of the existing scheme 3.1. Introduction This section examines the results of the existing scheme currently in operation before the Proposed Scheme comes into operation. It looks especially at three items – transport impact; extent of shift to ULEZ compliant vehicles; and air quality impact. 3.2. The transport impacts TfL has released a report about the impacts of the most recent expansion of ULEZ from the Central London Congestion Charging Zone to cover the area within the North and South Circular Roads2. Obviously TfL can hardly be considered as an independent assessor but there is no reason to suppose that the transport data has been distorted, even if it might have been quoted selectively. The RAC’s assessment of the TfL report says: ‘Khan revealed that TfL figures showed that around 124,000 had driven within the extended ULEZ zone before October were not compliant with regulations, but by the end of June 2022, it had decreased to less than 67,000 vehicles. The report also stated that more compliant vehicles were travelling within the extended zone compared to October 2021 – rising from 85% to 94%. The total number of vehicles on London’s roads had also decreased by just over 2% since the changes to the ULEZ last year. One of the main targets for the ULEZ is to remove the number of diesel vehicles on the capital’s roads. The TfL report showed that there has been a 20% decrease in the number used since October and ownership has dropped by 25% year-on-year.’ The results of the TfL transport assessment are shown in the two tables below taken from the TfL report. Table 2 is Table 4 from the TfL report and shows the month by month impact on car traffic; Table 3 is Table 6 from the TfL report and shows the month by month impact on van traffic. Given that new sales of non-compliant vehicles are illegal, the number of ULEZ compliant vehicles is in any case on a gradual downward trend so to establish the ULEZ impact it is probably best to examine the impacts in the early months. 2 https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/environment-and-climate-changepublications/inner-london-ultra-low-emission-zone-expansion-one-year-report?auHash=IxeIM3L6iJhCwYvb2wek2UKMCSJvpOqMgtpRAMt5B8
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