The entire Brussels-Capital Region has been a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) since 2018. Evaluations carried out by Brussels Environment have already established that this is having a significant impact on the types of vehicles being used in Brussels: the number of heavily polluting vehicles has dropped considerably and the city has therefore also seen a considerable reduction in emissions of air pollutants.
The Brussels-Capital Region is now carrying out a new survey to obtain more detailed information about the profile of those affected and to find out how their mobility has changed, now that their car can no longer be driven inside the Brussels-Capital Region due to the more stringent standards that apply in the Low Emission Zone. For example, are they now making greater use of public transport and if so, how often, or have they switched to a new vehicle or did they buy a bicycle instead?
Once it has the answers to those questions, the Region then hopes to be able to refine its accompanying measures where necessary. Such measures could then include mobility incentives to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to switch to electric vans, additional parking facilities for bikes or increasing the frequency of bus services. Whatever the situation, the Region wants to give vehicle owners affected by the stricter emission standards a helping hand and hopes that the results of this survey will enable it to do so more accurately and efficiently.
The Brussels Regional Informatics Centre (BRIC) not only installed all of the ANPR cameras associated with this Low Emission Zone so that the registration numbers of vehicles no longer allowed inside the zone can be identified quickly and accurately, but it also coordinated the Brussels regional video surveillance platform, in collaboration with Brussels Prevention and Security.
The next time more stringent rules are set to be introduced in the Low Emission Zone will be in 2022. From that point onwards, Euro 4 diesel vehicles will no longer be able to enter the Brussels-Capital Region. A few years later, in 2025, Euro 5 diesel vehicles and Euro 2 petrol vehicles will also no longer be allowed to enter the Region.
The survey is available
here. It is completely anonymous, however, anyone who wishes to can enter their personal details to have a chance of winning one of the 20 Decathlon vouchers (worth €25).
