The Mayor's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) for London

The impact of air pollution on the health of our people and the planet means we need to reduce emissions and car use in London. Expanding the ULEZ to outer London so it applies London-wide is part of the Mayor’s approach to tackling the triple challenges of toxic air pollution, the climate emergency and traffic congestion.

London has made significant progress over the last six years in improving air quality. However, toxic air caused by traffic is still leading to children growing up with stunted lungs and thousands of premature deaths a year – with the greatest number of deaths attributable to air pollution in London’s outer boroughs, which the ULEZ doesn’t currently cover. There has also been a slower rate of improvement in air quality in outer London than in central and inner London.

The ULEZ is highly targeted at getting the most polluting vehicles off our streets. Expanding the ULEZ to cover most of London will strike the best balance between maximising the health and environmental benefits for Londoners while minimising the cost to drivers, especially as the cost of living increases. Already around 85 per cent of vehicles seen driving in outer London meet the ULEZ standards and nearly half of London households do not own a car but are disproportionately feeling the damaging consequences that polluting vehicles cause.

Road transport accounts for approximately 28 per cent of carbon emissions in London. Experience from the ULEZ in central and inner London shows that many Londoners replaced some or all of their car and van journeys in the ULEZ with walking, cycling or public transport. Expanding the ULEZ to more of London will help us towards the Mayor’s goal of achieving a net zero carbon London by 2030.

The ULEZ has been very successful at getting the most polluting vehicles off our streets in central and inner London. Modelling, based on experience with the earlier schemes, suggests that expanding the ULEZ London-wide in August 2023 will:
• lead to a reduction of nearly 10 per cent of NOx emissions from cars in outer London on top of the 30 per cent reduction in road transport NOx emissions expected from the current ULEZ and tighter Low Emission Zone standards
• reduce PM exhaust emissions from cars in outer London by nearly 16 per cent leading to a 1.5 per cent overall reduction in PM emissions London-wide
• the number of cars not meeting the tough ULEZ standards each day would fall from 160,000 to 46,000 and the number of vans not meeting the standards each day would fall from 42,000 to 26,000
• overall the London-wide ULEZ is expected to lead to 146,000 fewer car trips (nearly 2 per cent reduction), with direct reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as well as other pollutants.

As we have done with central and inner London we will keep Londoner’s updated with progress once the scheme is launched.