Urban Low Emissions Zones: A Behavioral Operations Management Perspective

Environmental traffic restrictions are increasingly implemented in a large number of
cities. One popular strategy consists in setting up Low Emission Zones (LEZs) that
regulate or restrict the access to a dedicated urban area, for different classes of
polluting vehicles. While LEZs are growing in numbers, there is a lack of objective
evidence on when and how they actually contribute in reducing air pollution. The main
objective of this paper is to show how different LEZ setups lead to different impacts on
air pollution. To do so, we use a conceptual framework based on simulated traffic data
and behavioral hypotheses. Our analysis highlights that the impact of LEZ on air
pollution does not only depend on the severity of the operational rules, but also on its
interaction with the behavior adopted by road users, and calls for ex ante
considerations of these aspects before establishing the LEZ.