Executive Summary

Acknowledgements

Vehicles in Canada are a significant source of precursor emissions of harmful ambient air pollutants such as ozone and fine particulates. The Task Force on Cleaner Vehicles and Fuels under the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) is evaluating various strategies to reduce vehicle air emissions by reformulating gasoline and diesel fuels and promoting the use of low-emitting vehicles. The Task Force is evaluating the costs and benefits of these strategies to identify policy options for Canada. This study, Environmental and Health Benefits of Cleaner Vehicles and Fuels, includes estimates of the benefits for two representative control scenarios in Canada.

In this benefits assessment, qualitative and quantitative techniques are used to quantify and monetise benefits. The benefits of cleaner vehicles and fuels include reduced adverse health effects associated with air pollution such as mortality, child and chronic bronchitis, asthma symptoms, acute respiratory symptoms, emergency room visits and restricted activity days. Additional benefits in terms of reduced visibility degradation, and materials soiling would be obtained. For this benefits assessment, the team from Hagler Bailly Consulting, Inc. used a damage function approach to directly estimate health benefits from changes in air pollution levels, concentration-response relationships for specific health effects, and monetary values for these effects. For welfare benefits that could not be evaluated quantitatively because of data or other limitations, a list of these benefits was developed.

The quantitative results are summarised in Tables 1 through 4. These tables report low, central, and high estimates for total undiscounted benefits for the control scenarios between 1997 and 2020 in millions of $1994 as well as show the sensitivity of these results to the key assumption which is the share of ambient fine particulate from vehicles. The benefits represent the monetary values for the reduced number of health impacts associated with reduced ambient air pollution concentrations for fine particulate, ozone, and air toxics. The central value represents the best estimate for the benefits using central values for all variables. The low and high estimates report the values for the 20th and 80th percentile of the distribution of possible estimates for total benefits. Benefits associated with reduced levels of air toxics are reported with the high estimates because the estimates for reduced cancer risk are based on upper bound unit risk values

To summarize the results, total estimated benefits for Scenario 2 (implementation of alternative low-emitting vehicles (Alt-LEV) and fuels) are $23,050 million for the central estimate, $10,810 million for the low estimate, $29,080 million for the high estimate (undiscounted $1994 Canadian). Total benefits for Scenario 3 (implementation of California vehicles and fuels) are estimated to be $30,170 million for the central estimate, $14,090 million for the low estimate, and $38,220 million for the high estimate. Regionally, about 73% of total benefits are gained inside the Windsor-Quebec Corridor (WQC).

Benefits associated with reduced ambient concentrations of fine particulate comprise about 99% of the central estimate of total benefits for both scenarios. Therefore, result showing the sensitivity of the benefits estimates for particulate to the key assumption in the analysis are reported with the summary results. The key assumption in the particulate estimate is the share of ambient fine particulate concentration attributed to vehicles.

A compilation of source apportionment studies by the Desert Research Institute and Environment Canada found that this share could range between 3% and nearly 60% in urban areas depending on the region of the country and source apportionment results. Approximately 95% of the studies surveyed reported a share greater than 5%. Tables 2 and 4 show the sensitivity of the benefits estimated to a range of vehicle contributions to particulate concentration. The selected case was established on the basis of a study of 7 major Canadian cities and showed that the vehicle share of particulates was greater than 5% in Halifax, 10% in Central Canada and 15% in Western Canada. That basis bolstered by American data showing higher vehicle shares was adopted as a conservative central estimate whose summary results are reported in Table 1 and 3.

Qualitative benefits include improved visibility and reduced materials damage associated with reduced PM10 concentrations as well as reduced crop damage associated with reduced ozone concentrations as reported in Table 5.

The range of quantitative benefits estimates reported in this study are likely to understate total benefits for the scenarios for several reasons including:

• Consistent use of conservative assumptions throughout the study especially in the selection of vehicle share of ambient particulate concentrations, concentration- response coefficients, and monetary values.
• Exclusion of several potentially significant benefits categories because they could not be evaluated quantitatively in this study including benefits from improved visibility, crop yield, and reduced damage to materials.
• Greenhouse gas effects are not estimated
• The health effect which could be attributed to particles less than 2.5 micron in size, which are conjectured to have a greater health impact than the larger particles and to which vehicles contribute a higher percentage, have not been investigated.
• In Canada, with the exception of British Columbia, the health effects from the formation of secondary nitrates, sulfates and organics are only partly apportioned.

The summary report describes the methods and results for the benefits assessment with detailed information on the assessment included in the following supplemental reports:

• Supplemental Report 1: Air Modeling
• Supplemental Report 2: Concentration-Response Relationships
• Supplemental Report 3: Economic Valuation
• Supplemental Report 4: Results and Uncertainty Analysis.