Series: ULEZ

Periodically looking at the data associated with the expansion of the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone in London

ULEZ expansion. Who will be affected?

September 26, 2022 / Benjamin Welby / 4 Comments

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series ULEZ

The Mayor of London’s plan to extend London’s Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) to Outer London is causing great consternation but having looked at the criteria by which vehicles will be charged it seemed to me like the objections are over stating the real impact. Especially after I discovered that our 19 year old Ford Focus will be exempt.

So I wanted to try and understand the impact these proposals would have on car owners in London. To do that I needed to be able to:

count vehicles registered to households according to their London Borough
categorise them according to their fuel
group them according to the year they were registered

The Uxbridge by-election shouldn’t have been about ULEZ expansion

July 22, 2023 / Benjamin Welby / 2 Comments

This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series ULEZ

Last September I got hold of some data from DfT about the potential impact of the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) expansion. My view was that a lot of the angst towards the policy was overstated with a broadly similar proportion of Outer London drivers being affected as those Inner London households who have been living with ULEZ for many years.

In world of grown up governance the government and the Mayor of London would work together and ULEZ (or something like it) would be part of a wider strategic policy to tackle environmental and health related damage as well as encouraging adoption of less polluting vehicles. We don’t live in a world of grown up governance so the government has decided to weaponise ULEZ rather than to come up with a more positive set of policies. Is it perfect? Obviously not. Is it better than keeping the status quo? Probably. Could we see a more grown up approach to governing in the future? Hopefully.

ULEZ is a successful policy intervention.

May 1, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 2 Comments

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series ULEZ

So, we arrive at Judgement Day for Sadiq Khan’s time as Mayor of London. And we’re being asked to judge him solely on whether we think the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) is a successful policy intervention or not. His Conservative opponent, Susan Hall, certainly doesn’t think so and has promised to scrap the expanded ULEZ on her first day in office.

I’ve written before about how the Conservative party has weaponised ULEZ instead of seriously thinking about how government and Mayor can work together to achieve the intent behind this policy. Obviously that’s not going to happen but it’s still disappointing to have seen the Mayoral election reduced to a referendum on ULEZ.

Having crunched the data before it is only right to see whether we can gauge the success of ULEZ in terms of its impact on car ownership in London. Fortunately the Department for Transport have published an updated version of the veh9901 dataset (here’s the dataset I used for this post, captured in the Web Archive) that takes us through to September 2023.

And having looked at the data (which includes an 8 month lag don’t forget) it’s such a pity that we spend so much time listening to people having to defend or attack ULEZ rather than recognising ULEZ as a successful policy intervention because its achievements are significant, to the extent that I’m doubting my sums.

Prime Minister, please don’t re-open the debate about ULEZ

June 15, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 1 Comment

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series ULEZ

I had to sigh heavily when I saw this tweet from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with its pledge to “End Labour’s unfair ULEZ Expansion”.

Just last month, Sadiq Khan won a resounding victory in the Mayor of London elections, an election that had come to be seen as a referendum on ULEZ.

At the time, I revisited the Department for Transport data for the third time and established that between March 2022 and September 2023 there was a 40% reduction in the most problematic private cars. To my mind that makes ULEZ a successful policy intervention. It also means that the incumbent government is campaigning on the basis of something that affects just 331,632 private cars in London, a city of 9 million.

Well, it affected 331,632 private cars by the end of September 2023. I asked ChatGPT to help me with the linear regression and it told me this month, June 2024, the figure will probably be 230,000.

I wonder how many policies have generated so much airtime for such a small proportion of the population. It is deeply perplexing that ULEZ has worked its way into our national psyche (not to mention the time I’ve spent looking at it myself!)

Does the latest dataset support that projection?

A bustling street scene featuring several cars lined up on a road. In the background, the iconic clock tower of Big Ben is visible, with a blue arrow graphic indicating an upward trend in traffic or growth. The setting is illuminated by sunlight peeking through clouds, creating a lively urban atmosphere.

The pace of ULEZ compliance is slowing but still trending up

August 16, 2024 / Benjamin Welby / 0 Comments

This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series ULEZ

This is the fifth time I’ve looked at vehicle registration data in UK to see the extent to which private car owners are impacted by the expansion of ULEZ. I’ll probably do it once more to retrospectively see what the situation was at the time of the general election, and the former Prime Minister vowing to reverse one of the most successful policy interventions of recent years.

That last post, looking at the data until the end of December 2023, showed the total numbers of ULEZ affected private cars in London were 305,009 down from 552,198 in March 2022. What has another three months done to those figures?