The city of Garching would like the A9 to be laid in a tunnel. The connection between traffic and nitrogen dioxide pollution has been clearly demonstrated.
(Photo: Matthias Balk / dpa)
It was a pilot project: for two years specially developed sensors measured the air quality at critical points in the eight member municipalities of the Northern Alliance in the north of Munich. The results now show in black and white what some local politicians have been preaching for a long time: The air in Garching, Ismaning and Unterschleißheim as far as Hallbergmoos and Eching is polluted with fine dust and nitrogen dioxide – higher than the World Health Organization recommends. And this is largely due to the thousands of cars and vans that roll through the region every day.
One of the sensors installed by the Northern Alliance to measure air quality.
(Photo: private)
The Northern Alliance has set up its sensors at 35 points in all eight municipalities, on masts not far from the A9 motorway, which runs through the area, as well as on the B471 and on the main roads through the villages; the gray boxes measured the air for 24 months for the concentration of nitrogen dioxide, fine dust with a diameter of 2.5 and 10 micrometers as well as ground-level ozone and transmitted the data to a central point. The data scientist Tom Zastrow, who works full-time at the Max Planck Institute, evaluated the data for the Northern Alliance, and the Alliance also commissioned a scientific report from Graz University of Technology. A master’s student at the Technical University of Munich at the Department of Transportation Technology processed the data for her thesis.
More traffic, more nitrogen dioxide
In this, the graduate shows a clear connection between the volume of traffic and nitrogen dioxide in the air; the traffic peaks in the morning and in the afternoon caused clearly recognizable peaks in the measured concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). A less direct correlation can be seen in the data between the traffic volume and the fine dust 10 concentration.
The Northern Alliance feels confirmed by these results: The mayors of the eight municipalities have been warning for years that their places are suffocated by traffic. And that not only affects the nerves of the residents, who are often stuck in traffic jams, but obviously also on their health when they have to breathe bad air.
Garching’s mayor Dietmar Gruchmann complains about the high German limit values.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
“At no single measuring station did our measurements show less than ten micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic meter of air,” says Garching’s mayor Dietmar Gruchmann (SPD). In Garching and Hochbrück the values are even just under 20. The WHO recommends an annual limit value of ten micrograms per cubic meter of air. “We’d be over it in all municipalities,” says Gruchmann. However, and this is the crux of the matter, German legislation is based on a different, far more generous limit value. According to the 39th Federal Immission Control Ordinance, outside air is considered acceptable as long as it does not exceed a limit value of 40 micrograms per cubic meter as an annual mean.
The Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU) as the competent authority, which confronted the Northern Alliance with its results, reacted cautiously. Unfortunately, the LfU does not see its duty to reduce the volume of traffic in the region or to carry out further legally binding air measurements, explains Northern Alliance managing director Anna-Laura Liebenstund. Contacting the Freising State Building Authority went without further interest on the part of the authority.
Without support from a higher level, however, the municipalities can do little when it comes to federal or state roads. Annoying for the Northern Alliance. The member municipalities would like to see a greater awareness of the problem from major politicians, how burdened the region in the north of Munich is when it comes to car traffic. After all, Gruchmann does not look hopelessly into the future. “The question is, which values will the new federal government be guided by?” The mayor already has a few concrete suggestions for traffic measures.
A digital twin
To relocate the A9 in a tunnel, for example, at least along the length of the Garching residential areas. The local politicians in Garching and Ismaning have long protested against a four-lane expansion of the B471, as is currently planned in the federal traffic route plan. “A real bus lane would make much more sense on the B471, especially now for the new X buses,” says Gruchmann. The municipalities would also have a speed limit on some state roads.
To what extent the new federal government will answer the wishes of the Northern Alliance remains to be seen for the time being. What is certain, however, is that measuring air quality was not the Northern Alliance’s last data project. The alliance is promoted as a “smart region” and wants to explore further possibilities of digitization for the municipalities. “With the project we got a taste of big data,” says Franz-Josef Loscar, director of Ismaning municipal works and co-organizer for the Northern Alliance.
Next, the association is aiming for a cooperation with the city of Munich. “It’s going in the direction of a” digital twin “, says Loscar.” We want to try to make the city digitally comprehensible with the help of collected data, for citizens, but also for municipal authorities. “