Ricardo plc has won a contract funded by the Clean Air Fund to support the City of Warsaw in Poland to assess the impacts of different Low Emission Zone (LEZ) options so that the city authority, businesses and the public has clear evidence on the costs and benefits for adopting a preferred scheme. Polish cities face severe air quality challenges. In 2018, 36 out of 50 most polluted cities in the European Union (EU) were in Poland.

The country's capital, Warsaw, is one of the most polluted cities – with exposure to air pollution having a health-related cost to society of an estimated €4.2 billion every year. It also has one of the highest vehicle ownership rates (859 per 1,000 people) in Europe and has seen a growing influx of vehicles from outside of the city. This is driven the desire by the city to introduce an ambitious Low Emission Zone in the city by 2024, but doing so in a way that does not disproportionately impact groups of individuals or businesses.

The Clean Air Fund is supporting the city with these ambitions through its Breathe Warsaw programme. Ricardo will model the changes in pollutant concentrations which will result from the various LEZ options; assess the health impacts resulting from these changes in emissions and concentrations; carry out a cost benefit analysis of the different LEZ options; and consider how these costs and befits are distributed between different social groups and business sectors. Ricardo has already engaged the Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza (AGH) University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland to support with local data collection, engagement with key stakeholders and translation of final deliverables.