Urban context specificities
The City of Aachen has several context specificities that determine its transformative capacity and its UAQM strategy. It has a population of about 250,000 inhabitants, which is a major city in official German terminology, but is very small in global terms. However, the city is a major player in the German and global knowledge economy, particularly due to the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University which has 10,000 employees, 45,000 students and had the highest third-party funding rates (€ 297 Mio.) of all German Universities in 2016 (aachen tourist service e.V. 2019; AN 2018; RWTH Aachen University 2018). A further specificity is its location in the three-country triangle of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands (the so called Euregio Meuse-Rhine), which is important for the city’s local identity in addition to its historical heritage (i.e. Charles the Emperor) and the above-mentioned importance of the knowledge economy. Natural specificities that strongly influence local air quality are the local climate and topography (basin) (Merbitz 2013). The trend of air quality concentrations can also be regarded as a part of the urban context. As Fig. 2 shows, the air quality situation in Aachen is characterised by continuous exceedances of the NO2 limit value, while the situation for PM10 has improved. Together these factors caused and shaped the so-called “Aachen Way” (Langweg et al. n.d.) of UAQM, which focuses on long-term, innovation and incentive focused measures, in contrast to the short-term implementation of restrictions such as low-emission zones (LEZ), which for a long time were a preferred strategy in Germany and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).
Governance, instruments and techniques
The following section analyses UAQM in Aachen in terms of the criteria and features of the analysis framework (Fig. 1). Hence, it is basically structured along the eight elements of the UAQM process, which are indicated in parentheses (e.g. UAQM#1; in Discussion: juxtaposing UAQM and UTM section the same is done for UTM). The corresponding features of governance, instruments and techniques are highlighted in italics where applicable.
The objectives (UAQM#1) and time frames (i.e. time horizons and elaboration periods) are basically set on the European level and recently framed as three transition-steps (EC 2005; EC 2015, 2016; EEA 2015, 2017; EU 2013): As an outcome of the revision of EU air quality policy in 2013, the “Clean Air Policy Package” picks up the target from 2005 to fully comply with limit values by 2020 (“Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution”), but aims at further improvements to halve the number of premature deaths by 2030. The first was a result of the 6th and is also target of the 7th EU Environment Action Plan, seen as a contribution to its 2050 transition vision of “zero air pollution” (EEA 2015). In general, “[t]he EU’s clean air policy framework sets EU air quality standards, implements the EU’s international obligations in the field of air pollution, and integrates environmental protection requirements into other productive sectors” (EEA 2017). For the urban context, particularly the AAQD is important. Via this directive (U)AQM is a highly regulated and legally binding approach within the multi-level governance framework of EU air quality policy and hence, mostly characterised by government initiation and leadership. The major strategy instrument to fight against air pollution in Europe are air quality plans and short term action plans (EU 2015) (UAQM#7). They are formal planning instruments (formal thematic plans in the typology of Wolfram 2018), and stand for air quality ‘planning’ in a narrow sense. According to the directive, EU member states are obliged to implement air quality plans (Article 23) in case of exceedances of limit values for the protection of human health (AAQD, ANNEX XI; UAQM #1), partially in line with respective WHO Standards. In Aachen and beyond it is especially those for PM10 (the 10 μm aerodynamic diameter fraction of PM) and NO2 that shape the public discourse and urban air quality planning (cf. EEA 2018a). The task of air quality plans is to “set out appropriate measures, so that the exceedance period can be kept as short as possible” (AAQD, Article 23), leaving some room for interpretation of what “appropriate measures” or “as short as possible” means in detail. In a similar way, short term action plans (AAQD, Article 24) have to be drawn up in case of (risking) exceedances of alert thresholds, to immediately reduce air pollution concentrations during pollution peaks. Hence, the elaboration periods of air quality and action plans is intended to be a few years, while monitoring (see below) is a rather continuous task.
As indicated previously, UAQM in Aachen is heavily shaped by the national context and the way in which EU policy and law are translated into it (Severijnen 2014). In Germany, air quality policy is characterised by strong subsidiarity and a strong role of the federal states. The national air quality strategy of Germany has been based on four main principles for many years (BMU 2018): i) definition of air quality standards, ii) emission reduction requirements according to the best available technologies, iii) product regulations and iv) definition of emission ceilings. The federal states play a crucial role, because they are responsible for the execution of the AAQD. Therefore, the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is responsible for the Aachen air quality plan, which is implemented under coordination and by guidance of the District Authority of Cologne ( cf. Bezirksregierung Köln 2015). So in fact, it is an air quality plan for the urban area of Aachen, but not a plan by the city itself.
A major basis and facilitator for air quality governance and action is the underlying scientific knowledge, but even if both air quality research and policy are interdisciplinary fields, science and engineering seem to be most influential, bringing to mind rationalist planning (cf. Wolfram 2018). This can be seen by the features of UAQM techniques (i.e. UAQM#2–6). In the Aachen case, these are strongly related to one other crucial federal state actor, the State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV) that is assigned to the Federal Ministry for Environment, Agriculture, Conservation and Consumer Protection (MULNV). The LANUV is responsible for all official assessment steps and it does so all over the federal state and thereby applies the corresponding planning techniques (reference laboratory according to AAQD). These mainly contain quantitative analyses based on or in terms of, respectively, monitoring station networks, source apportionments, emission inventories, modelling approaches as well as exposure and health assessments (Gulia et al. 2015; Miranda et al. 2015; Thunis et al. 2016a; Thunis et al. 2016b). These serve as (dis-) continuous means of control as well as forecast (not so much foresight) and evaluation tools for abatement measures in terms of limit value compliance. Therefore, the assessments can be regarded as part of a reflexive monitoring process. In fact, the results from applying these techniques and reporting by the LANUV are the basis for the decision on whether an air quality plan has to be implemented or not, and how much reduction has to be achieved, thus (co-) determining somehow which abatement measures are taken. This is also the case in Aachen.
Coming back to governance and air quality strategies (UAQM#7), again, the development process of the local air quality plan in Aachen is characterised by selected stakeholder involvement. The main instrument for (local) dialogue and negotiation is a work group of experts. They are invited by the District Administration to discuss the features of the air quality plan, particularly the concentration situation and related options for air quality measures. The work group was first set up in the course of the first air quality plan in 2009 and also assisted the two revisions in 2015 and 2019. So the AAQD had an almost immediate impact on local air quality governance in Aachen.
Regarding the systemic scope, a main focus of UAQM on the transport sector can be observed, while air quality management in general is multi-sectoral and achieved a lot of success in other domains (e.g. industry). Today, local road traffic is the main reason for exceedances of PM10 and NO2 limit values and is consequently the focus of UAQM in Aachen and many other European cities (Bezirksregierung Köln 2018; EEA 2018a). However, other sources such as agriculture, shipping, wood burning or industrial facilities can also be of importance in other places. Furthermore, UAQM is embedded in multi-level governance processes and multi-scalar relations that go beyond the local context. The spatial scope of the Aachen air quality plan itself is even below the city scale. For instance, results from monitoring stations at traffic ‘hotspots’ determine measure implementation. However, there are also several city-wide measures.
The transport focus of UAQM is also reflected by the local multi-stakeholder constellation in the work group and the formal decision making process in Aachen. The city administration is mainly represented by the Department for Environment and the Department for Urban Development and Urban Infrastructure (i.e. Division for Traffic Management and Road Authority). Also the regional transport authority and local transport companies take part. Furthermore, several environmental NGOs play an important role in the group and the discourse, as well as business representatives. Hence, several other techniques such as urban and transport planning are also applied by different actors in addition to those of the LANUV. Formal local decision making about measures takes place outside the work group, mostly in the city councils’ mobility committee, in some cases in the committee of environment and climate (e.g. energy measures). The plan as a whole is decided by the council.
In Aachen, public involvement (UAQM#8) in relation to the air quality plan itself has so far taken place mainly in terms of formal public consultations giving the possibility of commenting on the draft air quality plan. This is in accordance with the requirements of AAQD Chapter V (cf. EEA 2019). Furthermore, some measures in the plan focus on or include information and communication aspects, respectively. If more intensive participation took place, this was mainly in the course of specific projects or plans related to the air quality plan. After having outlined the process and major features of UAQM the question is how it actually unfolded a transformative discourse, and which outcomes it had in Aachen.
Discourses and outcomes in Aachen
Almost immediately after the EU AAQD came into force in 2008, an air quality plan had to be implemented for the City of Aachen in 2009 (Bezirksregierung Köln 2009). Right from the beginning there has been a conflict about strategic preferences that is also rooted in different views of suitable time horizons and elaboration periods of measure implementation. On one hand, there was short-term focused implementation of low emission zones (LEZ). This was a preferred measure in many cities in Germany and Europe at that time, also by the federal government of NRW and the district authority Cologne. On the other hand, there has been the long-term strategy of local actors that was labelled the “Aachen Way” (Langweg et al. n.d.), which included a package of measures that mainly aimed at a shift to sustainable transport modes, but also included some measures in the energy domain. A ‘dramatic’ turning point in the air quality planning process was the failure of the flagship measure “Campusbahn”, which was an integrated tramway and e-mobility project. It was rejected in a local referendum that was initiated by a citizen campaign against the project that – despite substantial national funding – ‘successfully’ focused on the relatively high costs (cf. AN 2013). In fact, this decision led the “Aachen Way” to break down somewhat – as did the consensus between the actors.
In the following years in particular the limit values for NO2 have been exceeded continuously (in 2013 also for PM10, Fig. 2). In consequence, the air quality plan had to be revised in 2015 (Bezirksregierung Köln 2015) and the local discourse about air quality and the LEZ revitalised. The obligatory revision of the air quality plan also rekindled the basic conflict from the first plan. However, in the meantime advocacy coalitions had changed (AN 2014). On one side were now the district authority (with backing of the federal Ministry for Environment) and a coalition of local environmental NGOs. They no longer trusted the city’s politics due to experiences with the failed Campusbahn project and further deficits in measures implementation. On the other side, city and business actors argued jointly against the LEZ implementation, mainly by repeating former arguments that it would negatively affect local business and retailing (i.e. business related transport activities, barrier for visitors from Belgium and Netherlands), while having no significant positive effect on air quality at all. Given this situation in combination with the failed limit value compliance, the ‘danger’ of a LEZ was even higher than before. Hence, city actors were heavily pushed to ‘update’ their measure package, also due to pressure from the EU Commission on the national government that trickled down to the urban area (AN 2015). The result was that this time the LEZ had to be implemented in the beginning of 2016, but also the ‘alternative’ measure package was adopted. Paradoxically, public transport buses were identified as a major contributor to air pollution concentrations and thus were in focus of the 2015 revision. Hence, the LEZ implementation mostly served as a legal enforcement instrument for retrofitting of buses, since most private cars were already in line with the relevant Euro Norms and got a green environmental badge. However, because of the so called “Dieselgate” affair the underlying assumption of ‘clean’ cars was rather theoretical.
Already in the development phase of the first revision of the air quality plan, details became (and still become) public about car engine software manipulations by Volkswagen and other car manufacturers. The use of illegal defeat devices was compounded by insufficient type approval procedures on test stands and led to higher real world NOx emissions of diesel cars than expected. However, a disconnection of test stand and real-world emissions occurs even without manipulations (Barnes et al. 2018; UBA 2018). In order to close this gap, new testing standards were implemented recently in the EU in terms of “real-driving emissions” (RDE) in combination with improved laboratory tests (EC 2017).
The “Dieselgate” affair and the failure of the Euro standards set under the type approval tests currently shape the discourse at all political levels and in several domains (e.g. environment, transport and industry). In particular, lawsuits by the German Environmental Defense (DUH) that aim at enforcing diesel bans in several German cities and related decisions by the German Federal Administrative Court as well as the local administrative court in Aachen led to the second revision of the air quality plan in Aachen in 2019 (Bezirksregierung Köln 2018). This was both due to further limit value exceedances for NO2, but also because of continuous shortcomings in measure implementation. Similarly to the situation in 2009 and 2015, the fear about and opposition to a diesel driving ban led to more ambitious local action, also in terms of realising lagging measure implementation from the 2015 plan. This time a crucial difference occurred in the air quality planning process: Contrary to the LEZ implementation, the target of avoiding diesel driving bans on the local level was well in line with the respective national and federal government’s policy. Therefore, both provide more directed funding for urban air pollution abatement, which was previously lacking (i.e. federal ‘emergency clean air programme’ (2017–2020), “zero emission city centers” NRW; cf. Bezirksregierung Köln 2018). The City of Aachen adapted its measure package from 2015. It put greater weight on those elements that already pointed in this direction, to ensure fast(er) implementation of these programmes. Hence, the following “most effective and fast to implement measures” (Bezirksregierung Köln 2018) are given priority: i) retrofitting of buses with SCRT-filtration; ii) better coordination and raising of parking fees to reduce parking space search traffic; iii) more ambitious emission standards for buses in the local transport masterplan; and finally, iv) software updates for manipulated cars and ‘switchover bonuses’ for replacing older diesel cars with newer models (provided by car manufacturers/on the national level). Assessments in the air quality plan confirmed these measures to be sufficient for limit value compliance, or in other words, access restrictions in terms of route specific diesel driving bans, a blue low emission zone etc. were rejected and said to be disproportionate (Bezirksregierung Köln 2018). Another argument is the expectation of further positive effects on local air quality in Aachen from the translation of the revised EU Air Quality Policy (Clean Air Policy Package) into national law. As an intermediate result, a diesel ban could be avoided in Aachen, but the question remains as to whether measures will be sufficient for limit value compliance in the near future, or if the history of the first two air quality plans will repeat itself. A final court decision by the Münster Higher Administrative Court will follow in spring 2019 (cf. AN 2019).