• Masterlease comments on the pre-budget report - Oct. '07
• Licenced not to kill - Aug. '07
• Food for thought - biofuel comment - Jul. '07

• Low emission plans wide of the mark - May '07

• Call to tackle downtime - May '07
• Everybody's fuel - Biofuel comment May '07
• Park Strife - parking training for drivers - April '07
• Ensuring Continuity - business continuity release - April '07
• Masterlease launches FAGNAV™ - 1st April 2007
• Budget Comment - Mar. '07
• Everybody leaves empty-handed - Feb. '07
• Hot convertibles - Jan. '07
• Beware of poor carbon copies - Jan. 2007
• Speed limiter legislation - Dec. '06

Low emission plans wide of the mark - May '07

Low Emission Zone cash would be better spent elsewhere, warns Masterlease 

Leading fleet management firm Masterlease says the costs of implementing a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) in London would far outweigh the environmental benefits.

Transport for London’s (TfL’s) plans were officially unveiled by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone last week and involve fining all diesel-engined vehicles over a certain size if they fail emission tests and drive across London. The plans come into effect in February 2008 and become more stringent from January 2012 onwards.

Masterlease is cautiously in favour of the idea of schemes such as the LEZ, which is being brought in to tackle levels of air pollution in the capital, but has warned that controlling only heavier vehicles mean the plans would be relatively ineffective. The company says a universal approach that also addressed excessively-polluting cars would be a far fairer and more successful system. 

Based on figures from TfL, Masterlease estimates that it would cost around £500m: £130m to run the scheme and a further £390m for the relevant vehicle operators to achieve compliance. Yet Masterlease says the majority of larger vehicles are already compliant and that pollution levels would scarcely be reduced if the scheme did not include all vehicles.

Eddie Parker, Head of Commercial Vehicles at Masterlease, said: “Measures like this may at first seem extreme but certainly have long-term benefits. However, they need to be implemented properly from the start and should not unfairly favour some vehicles over others, nor should they have an impact on areas of the UK other than London.

“The other danger is that if central Government does not manage this correctly then we could potentially see similar, but different, schemes of this kind cropping up in other cities. It would be incredibly confusing if vehicles faced different emission restrictions from one town to the next. 

“Also, the estimated costs for a scheme that is only expected to last for eight years are astronomical and there would be much better ways to spend the money. Why not introduce incentives for employers to replace and upgrade their fleets or subsidise the fitting of filters or particulate traps to older vehicles?

“Although heavier vehicles do indeed bring greater emissions, cars still represent 40 per cent of all road transport emissions in the UK – it only seems sensible to include cars too. Although that would cause more upheaval and expense in the short term, the plans need to be implemented properly.”

Parker, who sent a formal response to Ken Livingston whilst the plans were at the consultation stage, said there were other issues that could prove problematic.  

He added: “The LEZ may simply diffuse traffic elsewhere around the UK which may benefit London but would reduce air quality around the UK. 

“Also, one of the main aims is to reduce levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution yet there are currently neither testing regimes in place to check NOx emissions, nor are there technologies in place to abate the levels of NOx emitted by engines.” 

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