Pandemic impact on air pollution and mobility in a Latin American medium-size city

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected lifestyles everywhere, changing urban traffic circulation worldwide. This paper focuses on the impact of the pandemic on air pollution from mobile sources in a Latin American medium-size city: Bahía Blanca (Argentina). Vehicle flow and corresponding emissions were evaluated before (January and March 2020) and after (June and November 2020) the lockdown. Vehicular traffic flows were measured and their segmentations were calculated. Emissions dispersion was modelled by employing R-Line, through the use of AERMOD. A decrease was observed not only in vehicular flow (~23%), but also in pollutant and greenhouse gas concentrations (~70%), in line with other research. Changes in mobility habits were observed, which were reflected by the different proportion of the vehicle-fleet segmentation, with a significant drop in the buses (~66%) together with the appearance of a bicycle peak (~53%), which is unusual for the city.