MOD003325 - Car-Free City Centres: A Detailed Impact Assessment Report

This report examines the multifaceted impacts of implementing car-free zones in city centers, focusing on health, social, and environmental dimensions. It explores how reduced car usage affects citizens' physical and mental well-being, including changes in exercise habits and stress levels. Environmentally, the report discusses the potential for decreased carbon footprints, reduced pollution, and the environmental consequences of construction activities required to facilitate car-free infrastructure. Socially, it analyzes the impact on community engagement, demographic shifts, public response, and crime rates. The report concludes with recommendations for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the challenges associated with car-free city centers, emphasizing the importance of quality monitoring, promoting electric vehicles and public transport, and fostering a socially supportive environment.

Assessment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
The health impact...................................................................................................................1
The Environmental impact.....................................................................................................2
The social impact....................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
RECOMMENDATION...................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Car-free city refers to the city which have very less availability or usability of cars for the
transportation purpose. This is the one which are effective for providing better city within
country. This is highly effective that allows to get better environment to the city by reducing
population and many other benefits which includes health benefits, social benefits and other
environmental effect that have high efficacy to deliver quality of living with better environment.
Car-free city doesn’t mean that there should not be use of any car. It means that there should be
use of minimal care for the transportation purpose by general people of that geographical
location (Ferrer, 2018). This can be effective and promote to use the public transport and other
transportation method which are eco-friendly and sustainable mode of transport. There is various
stakeholder who are involved in the making city car-free at the city centre. They are the one who
plays an important role in decision-making processes which is essential to take decision for the
sustainable mobility. People are the one of the main stakeholders which are involved in the
project of car-free city centre. There is EU-funded real world project which have the aim to
establish coordinating platform which are effective towards sustainable commuter mobility
within small and medium-sized cities in Central Europe. In this, report there is discussion about
various stakeholders who are involved in making a city centre car-free. There is analysis
different perspective which includes the health impact, social impact and the environmental
impact which can lead to create the impact of getting car-free city within country to improve the
quality of people. There is also some recommendation which can help to maximise benefits and
minimise the challenges for making city centre car-free (Menini, 2021).
MAIN BODY
The health impact
There is high impact of making city centre car-free. This is effective and allow to use the
sustainable transportation system which are helpful in getting better health. There is various
health impact to the people who are living nearby the car-free city centre. This may include the
changes in the exercise by the citizens. There is also high impact on people mental health who
are living in the city centre that are car-free.
Changes in how citizens exercise- Due to development of city centre that are car-free
should have high benefits to the individual for getting health for people. This can be having high
1

impact on the sequence and pattern of exercise. This may lead to issue for people for the
exercise. People of city centre may involve the changes in the pattern of citizen exercise. This is
effective and allow to get better and effective way to exercise. This can be effective and allow to
get better health improvement with the help of exercise (Naor and et, al., 2018). This is highly
helpful for the people who get pollution free place that can help to get better health for the
people. Due to not using car, this is effective way to use the sustainable mode of transport which
requires to move one to another place for their purpose. This can be effective and improve the
physical strength of individual that can allow to get better quality of life and can have positive
impact on the delivery of quality life.
Impact on mental health- There is the prospective that due to making city centre car-free
allows to get better environment to people that helps to provide better and healthy mind due to
getting better physical and local environment. Due to not using This is cheerful and help people
to do various activity that are physically healthy for the people. This enable people to get better
health of individual that is cheerful for people for better mental health. People are able to walk
and live their life in the city which is free from the traffic and fast moving vehicle that create
noise and other pollution like air. There is huge difference on individual mind due to getting car-
free city centre.
Changes in health related to using vehicles less frequently- Due to using less vehicle
enable people to walk and using of other sustainable mode of transportation which can include
bicycle. This can be healthy for people and also to provide physical strength that is beneficial by
using less frequently vehicles. There is an issue that this may sometime create fatigue to the older
age people. This is issue which needs to be improved because there can be risk of getting
physical fatigue due to using physical strength (Yang, 2021).
The Environmental impact
Car-free city centre is highly effective in context to the natural environment. This is
beneficial for the individual who are there in the city centre. This can help to reduce and
minimise the air and noise pollution which are highly emerged through using personal vehicle
like cars. Due to using sustainable transportation system, it allows to get better and effective
impact on individual health and their physical strength. This also help to improve the social life
of people which create better and effective impact on individual life. There is better
environmental impact which helps to improve the individual life and quality of health. This can
2

be effective and provide better wellbeing to people. There is also some effect which can be arise
that may include the impact on carbon footprint of city and its sustainability. It can have also
impact on the pollution and climate. There is also some impact of any construction work which
can be there for making city centre car-free (Yeager, 2020).
Impact on cities carbon footprint along with sustainability- It can be observed that due
to using less vehicle allow to improve the quality of air by getting reduction in the carbon
emission within city. This can be effective and allow to get better environment that can be
helpful and allow to reduce and minimise the carbon footprint within city. It also helps to
maximum utilisation of sustainable mode of transport like electric vehicle, walking, cycling and
others (Buehler, 2017).
Impact on pollution and climate- Due to car-free city centre, there is high impact on the
pollution which may include air and noise pollution. There is high rate of air and noise pollution
which causes due to using of car by every individual. Large number of car emit high carbon
which pollute air and due to using of horn on the city place increase the noise pollution which are
inbuilt in the car for the getting attention of people for purpose of grabbing attention.
There are environment impacts of any construction work that is needed- To make city
car-free there is need for the construction work which are needed to make transportation more
efficient and easy. In such process there is need for some construction work which may impact
the environment that may generally include air, noise, water and soil pollution. In this, there is
need to make it more sustainable that can be helpful in reducing or minimise the negative impact
(Golbabaei, 2021).
The social impact
There is social impact of making city centre car-free. This may include better community or
place to get social at that place. Due to less pollution and eco-friendly location allows people to
gather around and live life with more freedom. This also encourage people to live the real life
within group of people. Nearby society get highly impacted due to getting car-free city centre.
This allows them to get better communicate with people and enjoy the social gathering. This is
effective and help to make better relationship and reduce the stress due any reason within large
number of population (Wang, and et, al., 2021).
Public response and impact on society- There is huge changes in the response of car-free
city which may create some conflict within nearby people. This can be there due to fear of not
3

getting use their car as transportation mode. This can create impact on the society that may
include the fear of getting late for their normal work. This can also impact on the physical health
that can lead to issue of getting fatigue. There are many people in society who have physical
work and due to more walking and using cycle can lead to more fatigue which can have negative
impact on health on longer time (Macharis, 2017).
Changes to the demographic of area- There is risk of getting crowd at the place which is
pollution free. This can cause increase in that crowd which can decrease the improvement in
noise pollution. Due to big crowd, there is risk of getting change in the demographic data of that
area. There can be huge change in the demographic population which may increase the risk of
water and noise pollution within cities.
Changes in crime rate along with prevalent types of crime- Due to car-free city centre it
allows to get better monitoring of the location. This is needed to reduce the risk of getting crime
at that location. Due to car-free area, there is large population who like to use the sustainable
mode of transport which increase the risk for many people who like to travel either walking or
cycling and moving in streets. This can create the risk of crime which should be monitored to
take control over the crime (Jiang, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it can be concluding that car-free city centre doesn’t say that city
is totally car free. Instead of this, it insists to use the less vehicle and frequent use of sharing car,
using sustainable mode of transport which can be effective and allow to get better improvement
to support the car-free city centre. There is chance of getting various challenges for the
stakeholder which may include social impact, environmental impact and health impact on the
population.
RECOMMENDATION
There are different benefits and challenges are discussed in the analysis where using some
recommendation can be highly effective and allow to maximise the benefits and minimise the
issues or challenges and can provide better outcomes. There is some recommendation which can
be helpful to suggest the way to minimise the challenges and maximise the benefits.
It is recommended to use the quality monitoring of the city which can be effective and allow
to reduce the crime within car-free city centre. Proper monitoring can be helpful and allow to get
4

better indication of any crime. This can be helpful to maintain the low-n-order within city. This
is effective and highly helpful to reduce the risk of crime.
It is recommended to use the electric vehicle and when necessary then should use the public
transport when available which allows to get better and effective reduction in the pollution. This
allows to reduce the pollution within city centre with car-free area. Through using the electric
vehicle allow to reduce the pollution which can be there due to use of vehicle.
It is also recommended to use the public transport which can be more effective to reduce the
carbon footprint which are effective and allow to get better environment that can help to reduce
the impact of air pollution. There is need to use the sustainable mode of transport to reduce the
air pollution. This can be effective and allow to get better improvement which helps in
improving environment.
It is also recommended to focus on such type of environment which allow people to get
better and effective society. This is helpful to provide better mental health when people meet
with other and make social relation more over being introvert. This also help to reduce the stress
level which may arise due to any reason. This also provide better physical environment to people
that allow to get better environment.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Buehler, 2017. Vienna's path to sustainable transport. International Journal of Sustainable
Transportation, 11(4), pp.257-271.
Ferrer, 2018. Associations of mode of travel to work with physical activity, and individual,
interpersonal, organisational, and environmental characteristics. Journal of transport &
health, 9, pp.45-55.
Golbabaei, 2021. The role of shared autonomous vehicle systems in delivering smart urban
mobility: A systematic review of the literature. International Journal of Sustainable
Transportation, 15(10), pp.731-748.
Jiang, 2019. Quantifying the spatial heterogeneity influences of natural and socioeconomic
factors and their interactions on air pollution using the geographical detector method: a
case study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 232, pp.692-704.
Macharis, 2017. The 4 A's of sustainable city distribution: Innovative solutions and challenges
ahead. International Journal of Sustainable Transportation, 11(2), pp.59-71.
Menini, 2021. Method for Using Nonmotorized Modes of Transportation as a Sustainable Urban
Mobility Index in University Campuses. Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A:
Systems, 147(2), p.05020010.
Naor and et, al., 2018. Servitized business model innovation for sustainable transportation: Case
study of failure to bridge the design-implementation gap. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 170, pp.1219-1230.
Wang, and et, al., 2021. Carsharing-facilitating neighbourhood choice: a mixed logit
model. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 36(3), pp.1033-1054.
Yang, 2021. Coastal container multimodal transportation system shipping network design—toll
policy joint optimization model. Journal of Cleaner Production, 279, p.123340.
Yeager, 2020. Modeling residents’ attitudes toward short-term vacation rentals. Journal of
Travel Research, 59(6), pp.955-974.
6