Airports as Sensitive Areas to Mitigate Air Pollution: Evidence from a Case Study in Rome

Abstract

The environmental concerns are behind urban and regional mobility plans, with one of the goals being to manage surface traffic to reduce emissions. Yet, in sensitive areas such as those around airports, the contribution to the emissions generated by air traffic are commonly not considered. The research goal of this paper is to quantify and compare the magnitude of the emissions generated by both air and surface traffic, taking the second airport in Rome as an example, in the awareness that a proper knowledge of the emission phenomena might help steer local transport policies towards more appropriate and sustainable solutions. The paper describes the case study’s regulatory and land use frameworks both affecting the current traffic patterns around the airport and the emission generation, along with the methodology adopted to quantify the emission magnitude of both air and surface modes; as a result, air traffic emissions are not even comparable in magnitude to those from surface modes. In light of that, implications for surface transport policies are presented, leading to a revision of current mobility plans, and solutions to minimize emissions during land and take-off operations suggested, although problems for their implementations are acknowledged in the conclusions. All within the additional goal to advance the research further afield.