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In Response to Pollution Spike, Paris Temporarily Halves Traffic By Decree
As reported by News.com.au, the city of Paris has implemented a harsh (but temporary) measure for drivers, in response to a surge in pollution: banning cars with even-numbered registration plates from the streets. According to the article,
City mayor Anne Hidalgo had asked authorities to prevent one in every two cars from taking to the capital’s streets and make all public transport temporarily free in a bid to drive down pollution. Only vehicles with numberplates ending in an odd number will be allowed to drive, though exceptions exist for vehicles like taxis, electric cars and ambulances. ... Public transportation is to be free until at least Monday in Paris and its surrounding towns in an effort to force pollution down by coaxing drivers to give up their cars for a few days. Similar emergency measures were last implemented almost exactly a year ago — on March 17 — during a particularly bad spike in the pollution levels.
Advantage take every opportunity!
Bad fuel. Thankfully the US never adopted that mess.
Why not? You allow only half the vehicles on the street today and the other half tomorrow. You have halfed your traffic and brought your pollution levels down. It is quite simple to enforce by number plates. Petrol today and diesel tomorrow on the other hand is difficult to enforce, makes no sense.
Having been through carless days in the 70's, it is trivial to make evens and odds on alternate days, with maybe Fridays as all allowed. Alienating one group (evens) makes it personal.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
It's lack of bathing. Those French bathe once every other week. Cologne is heavy in the air but cannot mask B.O, either of which is sure to be a significant AQ factor of the highest order.
There's no evidence that this pollution is man made. In a free country I shoul be able to drive all I want.
Band-aid on a gushing wound here. We're just pushing issues around and avoiding the real one.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
There was recently a good talk about smog in China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Yes, but you're missing the crucial point that "No Diesel" is very hard to enforce -- typically diesel commuter cars have only a small badge (if that) to distinguish them from the petrol versions, and the badge is different in appearance and placement between manufacturers and models. By contrast, banning cars based on license plate is very easy to enforce, as they are standard across vehicles and police are already accustomed to inspecting them by habit.
In short, a non-optimal rule that can be enforced is much better than an optimal rule that can't.
Usually I'm against nanny-stating, but in this case there is a clear and immediate problem, and there is a quick way to mitigate it. What I hope will happen is that this will (1) put more focus on pollution in France, and (2) teach the people there alternate ways to go about their day that won't pump gobs of pollution into the air.
diesel isn't so bad now on passenger cars.
very hard to enforce such a ban anyways, though it would be fairly simple to allow for full electrics. of course, this being about france, they'll probably just buy two shitty cars to drive every day anyways.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I often hear of government agencies blaming cars but when you actually look at the sources of the pollution post these so called events a majority of the time it has nothing to do with cars.
Really? Have gendarmes only been trained to recognise odd numbers, and learning two sets of numbers is beyond their training?
Not really fair to diesel owners, which include most of the business vehicles.
Too bad there's so much car ownership there...
If only fewer people owned cars there, and instead car-pooled using Uber...
The diesel problem isn't a combustion one: diesel is more efficient than petrrol. In case you wonder what "more efficient", that is that the combustion rate is higher than that of petrol.
The problem lies with particle emissions / N compounds emissions. That's where diesel pollutes much more than petrol.
The same happened a year ago, air pollution prompting the even-odd license plate number scheme. Worked then.
I sell cheap license plates with 2 days guaranteed delivery!
Why not? You allow only half the vehicles on the street today and the other half tomorrow. You have halfed your traffic and brought your pollution levels down. It is quite simple to enforce by number plates. Petrol today and diesel tomorrow on the other hand is difficult to enforce, makes no sense.
I agree, but there's nothing in the article to suggest that it'll be half the vehicles today and the other half tomorrow. Instead it says "Only vehicles with numberplates ending in an odd number will be allowed to drive... for a few days" You'd think it'd be odd numbered plates on odd numbered days and even plates on even days, but that's not what it says.
But come to think of it, that'd be a little weird: you'd be able to drive your car into the city on one day, but wouldn't be able to drive it out the next. You wouldn't be able to go anywhere overnight, you'd have to wait a day for the return trip. They're using check points to stop cars from entering the city, but presumably they won't stop anyone leaving.
If you're already in the city, just plead ignorance; who watches the news anyway? :)
Cutting traffic via license plate doesn't work: http://www.cracked.com/article_20724_5-laws-that-made-sense-paper-and-disasters-in-reality.html
Utter nonsense. I drive a French car which is a 2Litre diesel and it's cleaner than either its 1.6 or 2Litre petrol engined models.
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/49545/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-2.0-bluehdi-exclusive+-150-eat6-auto-diesel-automatic-6-speed
http://www.nextgreencar.com/view-car/53981/citroen-c4-grand-picasso-1.6i-thp-exclusive-165hp-s&s-eat6-auto-petrol-automatic-6-speed
It happens once or twice every year...
They have a specific problem (NOx and PM), but they address it with broad measures. It may work to some degree, but the costs are significant. (And I still remember car being completely banned on a Sunday... that was even broader, but it also carried a sense of purpose and community.)
But my main issue is that these measures are very late. Surely they should be taken before pollution reaches unacceptable level, to prevent that from happening.
Yeah, more PM10s with Diesel than Petrol, but PM2.5s are too small to block with respirators and until recently were unable to be measured. They're much worse than PM10s
Guess which engine produces a lot of PM2.5?
That's right: Petrol engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates
Paris is not Mexico city. Are you really suggesting that people buy a second car for one day of the year? In densely populated Paris?
Public transport uptake would likely increase dramatically, at least here in Australia, if it were free. It probably wouldn't change train usage, but for buses and trams there would likely be a marked uptake. I suppose it might be a hard sell due to the cost, though the benefits of fewer cars on the road might sell that pretty well.
At a guess, I'd say there are two main reasons people don't use public transport: it's inconvenient to schedule your transport around someone else's timetable and path, and it's inconvenient to have to carry the correct quantity of cash / make sure a bus card has enough money on it; for the poorer demographic the cost part is probably a greater component. Having more people using public transport would probably result in increased availability / paths for public transport, mitigating the first problem a bit.
Just seems a bit weird; if you want cars off the road, reduce the benefits of using one (using a bus would eliminate wear & tear, fuel, and parking costs). As a bonus your population's health might improve very slightly as people are walking to and from the bus stops.
That's good for the car industry :) joking aside the rule is not permanent so there is no need.
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
So a 1.6 litre bluemotion diesel is not allowed and a 5 litre V8 petrol is...see where your logic sucks?
> Only vehicles with numberplates ending in an odd number will be allowed to drive
It's simpler than that: Numberplates ending in an odd number can run on days with odd numbers; Numberplates ending in an even number can run on days with even numbers.
Obviously, the longer term solution requires major changes:
- reduce the need for transport, whether it's people (telecommute, move closer to one's work) or cargo (the end of buy and discard)
- move cargo from trucks to rail
- ban diesel cars
- replace gasoline cars with electric cars, bicycles, public transport.
Due to draconian environmental laws such as the above, and high taxes, most of France's industrial base will leave the country. Pollution due to cars and industry will go down because few will have jobs, however pollution due to rioters burning things down will be on rise.
Except it's not a question of green. CO2 emissions here aren't what's causing the problem, it's particulate matter and Nitrous Oxides.
From your own link your diesel produces double the NOx emissions.
Not wanting cancer trumps the minor differences in CO2 emissions between the models, and diesel is definitely no longer considered greener or healthier the way it used to be.
Only petrol no diesel instead of only odd no even ,, which does not make sense.
Bullshit. Modern diesels are at least as clean as gassers. Gasoline engines produce much more soot than originally thought, just as much as diesels, and the soot is all fine particulates — the most hazardous kind.
France is trying to ban diesels because it's easier than increasing the tax on diesel fuel. Gasoline is taxed higher than diesel fuel. They get more tax revenue when you burn gasoline, especially since you burn more of it. Meanwhile, it takes 60% as much energy to make diesel as gasoline.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Keeping pumping out those babies. We wouldn't want the rich folks to suffer a less than stellar return on their investments.
The problem lies with particle emissions / N compounds emissions. That's where diesel pollutes much more than petrol.
false
You don't know what you're talking about, do you?
Right back at you, kid.
It's not surprising that you don't know what you're talking about, because TPTB don't want you to know that gasoline is just as polluting as diesel. But it's sad that you're repeating this uninformed canard.
Nitric oxides are important, they are what causes acid rain, but they are nothing compared to particulates and CO2 — especially since we've reduced them so very much. And gasoline is actually worse than diesel in this regard because all of the soot is PM2.5. Modern diesels produce more PM2.5 than old ones like my 1982 300SD, though. While my 300SD has no emissions equipment (the EGR actually failed) it gets 30 MPG freeway which is right up there with the more efficient full size sedans of today, and the soot it produces is larger in size.
However, you're forgetting to account for mileage. Yes, the diesel produces more NOx per gallon. It also burns less gallons. The diesel doesn't produce twice as much NOx per mile traveled. In 1982, a full-size sedan typically got 20 mpg or less on the freeway, maybe 22 or so if it was spectacularly good. So I'm consuming significantly less fuel and producing notably less CO2 than I would if I were driving a gasser.
Of course, you could say we should all be driving new cars. In which case, I'll happily let you buy me one. I'll take a TDI, thanks.
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow the ignorant idiots who you don't want to hear from anyway a fair chance at posting a comment.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You're forgetting the lead compounds that petrol contains to reduce knocking.
We are playing at "pretend it's the 1980s", right?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The diesel sold in Europe is much better fuel than the one we dump into trucks and trains. Lower sulfur, for one thing, although we are catching up. Most environmentally friendly motor fuel is diesel (no, it is not the remote-polluting electrics; look at the output of, for example, the Four Corners power complex). Modern biodiesel burns clean and has a very low carbon footprint. Soot traps take care of the particulates.
Additionally, diesel fuel has much more energy available by volume or mass, is less flammable, and hygrophobic (doesn't pull water from the air into the fuel tank) than the lighter hydrocarbons (gasoline, methane, ethanol), or hydrogen (unless fused, of course)
I wish I could have purchased the turbo-diesel version of my Jaguar XJ, rather than having to settle for an XJ-R.
The whole "diesel is greener" thing is one of the biggest scam in France's recent history. By carefully choosing the proper metric (CO2 emmissions) french government was able to support french car manufacturers through tax incentive. Most of the small city car are now running diesel which is an aberration if i ever saw one.
I have 3 cars at home, all of them running gasoline. At least i'm not pretending to drive "green" - I try to use my bike for that purpose.
Paris is not Mexico city. Are you really suggesting that people buy a second car for one day of the year? In densely populated Paris?
Do you think if it's found to be acceptable by the population it'll stay as only one day a year?
Diesel engines are much more polluting than petrol since the combustion is incomplete.
I already know about the difference between the official trope about diesel pollution and the improvement reached nowadays, but that wasn't the point.
They did this in San Jose, Costa Rica (and maybe they still do, I don't know). Cars were each restricted one weekday. Plates ending in 1 or 2 on Monday, 3 or 4 on Tuesday, etc. It wasn't 24 hours, it was from ~6am to 8pm.
It was somewhat successful, though not surprisingly considerably less than a 20% reduction. Taxis were not restricted, and of course wealthier families tended to have more than one car.
>> Diesel engines are much more polluting than petrol
Not in France. Most diesel engines here have FAP filters.
aaaaaaa
That will just cause people to buy/rent a second car for use on the days their existing car isn't permitted...
The registration database includes information as to wether the vehicle uses petrol, diesel or electric etc so it's no harder to enforce.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
There is a lot of political pressure in Paris to push out diesel motors, which are often the main source of summer pollution peaks. This
one actually has another origin: (French source) http://www.airparif.asso.fr/ac... .
There is actually a cloud over much of north Europe, not just Paris. The origin is firstly agricultural.
Its mostly ammonium nitrate from spring fertilizer spreading. The second source is wood burning out in the country. Diesel
is the third source in this outbreak.
The real political problem is the impossibility of doing anything against big-agro, not diesel. (Similar problems in France
also occur with water pollution -- impossible to regulate)
The license database already includes information about what type of fuel a car uses, the same system that recognises license plates can also be configured to flag cars using the wrong fuel, or with an engine over a certain size etc.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
This is by no means a new measure. It happens every few years - so far hoarding of cars has not happened. If it really becomes necessary regularly, then yes, something different has to be done.
The 'system' is almost certainly the Mark I eyeball. I think you underestimate the configuration difficulties.
You bathe in a bath, but that doesn't mean you spell bath with an e.
A phrase that defines "bathe" more fully is "Splash it all over". Anyone who remembers the Old Spice adverts will know why this is appropriate.
So, no, cologne is not an alternative for bathing, it's what you bathe your neck in to make it not a perfume, therefore not gay or faggy for a man.
Introduce a congestion charge. Want to drive your car in the middle of a city despite the excellent public transport? Fine, pay us a large amount of money. Maybe engage in a bit of Uber-style surge pricing while they're at it.
Same thing in São Paulo (/. is known to cripple posts, the first word is Sao with a tilde, which makes the pronunciation be like "sawn"). BTW, "são" is short for "santo" ("saint"), so the name of the city (and capital of the state of the same name) would be "Saint Paul" in English.
We even use the same number scheme, but it goes in two periods: from 7AM to 10AM and from 5PM to 8PM. The main advertised reason is to better distribute traffic in peak hours, but we had similar anti-pollution measures that forbid the same plates on the same days for all the period going from 7AM to 8PM before.
Alas, it doesn't work. Everybody just buys another car, which can be used in the extended family (dad, son, daughter-in-law, her mother, brother, sister etc.). In the end, everybody can leave home at will. It's just the trouble of coordinating cars plates in the immediate family.
The only "advantage" of that thing is to produce more tickets (for using the car on a day it was not allowed). With more people than entire countries (20 million), I wonder what they could do to make our lives more miserable to force people to move.
Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_S%C3%A3o_Paulo
Back on topic, we're having a hard time with fossil fuels. Recent developments in electric car technology (see Tesla) and solar energy collectors (just saw an article about Costa Rica going entirely "no fuel") are a death knell to polluting engines.
Even if you don't want to quit using fossil fuels, it is obvious better procedures and filtering can be used with thermo-electric plants generating electricity, compared to millions of pollution generators across the landscape. Not to mention an electric car is 3 (THREE) times as efficient as a fuel one.
One must love to throw money away to keep on using old technologies instead of newer, more efficient ones. Lots of lobby money and advertising to keep people uninformed.
For the record, my car uses ethanol. I cannot buy electric cars where I live; I can buy hybrid at prohibitive prices -- they're not locally produced. Just went to a Shopping Center yesterday which has a special parking spot for electric vehicles (just one from some 5 or 10 previously available) as a green incentive. I never saw it used. Our government is made of people which, well, do not govern.
Ethanol is a nice fuel, because there's a cycle where you take CO2 from the atmosphere and then return it when it's burned. Also, it's very clean: no nitrogen or sulfur compounds released.
But it's best produced from sugarcane. Making it from corn simply makes no sense: people dumbly start to attack the substance ethanol instead of pondering about economic ways to produce it.
In São Paulo, ethanol is as widely available as gasoline and priced competitively.
Does not work in Paris, unless you are in the tiny minority of extremely rich: parking isn't free in Paris except if you own a place (usually acquired with your property)
What?
You cannot masturbate while driving a diesel car in France?
I'm shocked.
I agree, but there's nothing in the article to suggest that it'll be half the vehicles today and the other half tomorrow. Instead it says "Only vehicles with numberplates ending in an odd number will be allowed to drive... for a few days" You'd think it'd be odd numbered plates on odd numbered days and even plates on even days, but that's not what it says.
"It" being an Australian news source that is being a bit vague. What actually happens in Paris is that it goes by whether the day of the month is odd or even. Monday is 23rd, so only odd digit cars are allowed on the road. If it extends to the 24th, then only even numbered cars will be allowed.
And the ban certainly does apply within the city. Pleading ignorance will still get you a fine.
That will just cause people to buy/rent a second car for use on the days their existing car isn't permitted...
If this were to happen all year round, sure people would buy a second car. But not for the very rare day that this happens.
And there are only a limited number of rental cars available. Of which only half would be useful.
The registration database includes information as to wether the vehicle uses petrol, diesel or electric etc so it's no harder to enforce.
There's no ring of barriers round Paris with computer controlled opening, such as you are imagining. This is enforced by police using eyesight. Even/odd is far easier than petrol/diesel, even if there were agreement that it would be reasonable to ban one or the other based on fuel. The French sense of egalitarianism would be happier with odd/even switched over each day, rather than one kind of car being continually banned every day.
How about banning all those barely running properly mopeds and scooters? Last time I was there the smell of two cycle engine exhaust was prevalent about every 5th scooter that went by.
Every single scooter I have ever seen yes even the top of the line vespas have horrible engines that blast out a lot of unburned fuel as they are never maintained right. and so far I have yet to see a moped sold that has a Catalytic converter and fuel injection, so even new ones are spewing more smog than 2 cars.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
EVs are exempt from this ban since they don't emit anything.
Electric vehicles themselves do not emit, but they cause power plants to emit.
This was tried in Athens. What actually happens is that 2 car families who have the option no longer take the smaller, less polluting car half the time, and lots of 1 car families buy a really cheap clapped out, much more polluting car to use on alternate days.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
While it's true that a diesel without emissions control emits more highly dangerous particulates, this is not 1970. In an advanced economy any properly maintained, recent model diesel vehicle is going to be as clean as its gasoline counterpart.
It's worth considering banning the most polluting vehicles rather than arbitrarily banning half of all vehicles, but you can't do it this way. One way to do it would be to ban older vehicles, or vehicles of a certain weight carrying fewer than two or three passengers. But the even/odd license plate thing will work to reduce pollution and is simple to implement in a short term emergency -- although a massive inconvenience to people who can't carpool for some reason.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Nonsense? There should be a law against driving Picasso.
For god sake, did you even looked at the pictures in the links?!?
The rule does not apply to "clean" cars (electric, hybrid,...). Never mind some hybrids burn more fuel than non-hybrids...
Petrol in Europe is supposed to be lead free.
It's actually odd plates on odd days, even plates on even days.
Considering the PM2.5 issue, I'm starting to wonder if "modern" diesels might actually be worse than older ones. At least older diesels produce big particulates that are more easily filtered or washed out by rain. Plus, they get better fuel economy, can run on biodiesel without clogging the common-rail injectors, etc.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Woosh
Bogota, Colombia has legislated no drive days all year round. Pico placa publishes the last digits in the paper.
Anyone of wealth just has multiple vehicles.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I second this.
The french are unfortunately very profiteer at time. Whenever a national election comes along, those who have any outstanding trafic tickets wait for the newly elected president to give them a waiver.
I remember listening to an EconTalk podcast about when this was tried somewhere in Latin America. There was a bustling trade in fake license plates so you could swap them out and the number of cars people owned spiked up. In the end it was not very effective.
Obviously,the Paris experiment might have a different outcome but I suspect the Parisians will find ways to drive on the prohibited days. Uber/Lyft/Sidecar have to be giggling in glee. (I can't remember, did Paris ban ride sharing?)
Why not? You allow only half the vehicles on the street today and the other half tomorrow. You have halfed your traffic and brought your pollution levels down. It is quite simple to enforce by number plates. Petrol today and diesel tomorrow on the other hand is difficult to enforce, makes no sense.
What's strange though is that the article makes no mention of an alternating schedule. If it was alternating between odd and even
then this seems like a weird but reasonable solution. Just banning even number plates without alternating is very bizarre. Why not
just ban all the cars?
This is France! It's mandatory to have a mademoiselle with you.
"Oh yes, the French are still MEN! They signal with their right and with the left they wave at the mademoiselles."
"And what do they hold the steering wheel with?"
"I said, the French are still MEN!"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Considering the PM2.5 issue, I'm starting to wonder if "modern" diesels might actually be worse than older ones.
The new ones have less of everything but PM2.5, so it's kind of a difficult argument. Best-case, IMO, is a modern (common-rail) diesel but without the emissions trap crap... run on biodiesel.
I'm thinking hard again about a propane conversion, but only if I can run it on methane as well. Then the hard part will be getting enough biomass, and getting it into one of those big bags people are using for water tanks now.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's actually odd plates on odd days, even plates on even days.
Over the long run, that's statistically unfair to the even-plated people since the odd-plated folks can drive consecutive days on ;-) Mar 31/Apr1 May 31/Jun1 July 31/Aug 1 Aug 31/Sep 1 Oct 31/Nov 1
Jan 31/Feb 1 (Feb 29/Mar 1 looooong run
you can easily reconfigure those with a simple tool like a screwdriver or a pencil or even your finger.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
....Anne's license plate is even?
If this were me, I'd just go get my license plate re-issued.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
It's in Paris, so I believe it would be the Jacques eyeball.
Better just call-in sick.
I bet the mayor's favourtie car's number plate is odd
They say diesel gives almost 1.5 times the fuel efficiency of petrol. So even if it is more polluting by the gallon, if you need less of it you have less pollution, no?
About 80% of France's electrical energy comes from nuclear power plants
But how many countries other than France could come to claim the same? I thought arms nonproliferation treaties limited which countries could operate nuclear power. And even if not, how can public sentiment get over a little problem called Fukushima?
they'll probably just buy two shitty cars to drive every day anyways.
Which is EXACTLY what happened in Mexico City when they tried this sort of thing. It wound up making the problem worse.
Bureaucrats need to learn that you cannot force people to change their habits. They will work around any restrictions and then resent you for it. You have to change the environment that makes gas-burning cars attractive--improve public transit, subsidize electric (or raise petrol taxes, either way), mixed-zoning so people don't have to go as far for daily needs, etc.
I had no idea Texas was so progressive.
I take it you're from the US where diesels are uncommon.
Its quite easy to tell when a car is a petrol or diesel, you just need to listen to it. If the car sounds like a tractor, it's a diesel.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Oops, I didn't see the "pretend it's the 1980s" part. Woosh indeed.
Its quite easy to tell when a car is a petrol or diesel, you just need to listen to it. If the car sounds like a tractor, it's a diesel.
It also belches black smoke and leaves a trail of dying wildlife in its wake.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Oops, I didn't see the "pretend it's the 1980s" part. Woosh indeed.
So on slashdot, not only do we not read TFA or even TFS, we now don't even read the comments we're replying to?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yes, but you're missing the crucial point that "No Diesel" is very hard to enforce -- typically diesel commuter cars have only a small badge (if that) to distinguish them from the petrol versions, and the badge is different in appearance and placement between manufacturers and models. By contrast, banning cars based on license plate is very easy to enforce, as they are standard across vehicles and police are already accustomed to inspecting them by habit.
In short, a non-optimal rule that can be enforced is much better than an optimal rule that can't.
It can be enforced by simply requiring a sticker on the windshield saying what kind of car it is and then impounding any car that doesn't have a sticker that matches the motor (or whatever the requirements are) in the car.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
I know, I hate it when people do what I did there...
I think I may have mistaken the second line for a signature and therefore skipped it. (I know, the actual sig was below the "--")