To what extent the traffic restriction policies can improve its air quality? An inspiration from COVID-19

In hazy days, several local authorities always implemented the strict traffic-restriction measures to improve the air quality. However, owing to lack of data, the quantitative relationships between them are still not clear. Coincidentally, traffic restriction measures during the COVID-19 pandemic provided an experimental setup for revealing such relationships. Hence, the changes in air quality in response to traffic restrictions during COVID-19 in Spain and United States was explored in this study. In contrast to pre-lockdown, the private traffic volume as well as public traffic during the lockdown period decreased within a range of 60−90%. The NO(2) concentration decreased by approximately 50%, while O(3) concentration increased by approximately 40%. Additionally, changes in air quality in response to traffic reduction were explored to reveal the contribution of transportation to air pollution. As the traffic volume decreased linearly, NO(2) concentration decreased exponentially, whereas O(3) concentration increased exponentially. Air pollutants did not change evidently until the traffic volume was reduced by less than 40%. The recovery process of the traffic volume and air pollutants during the post-lockdown period was also explored. The traffic volume was confirmed to return to background levels within four months, but air pollutants were found to recover randomly. This study highlights the exponential impact of traffic volume on air quality changes, which is of great significance to air pollution control in terms of traffic restriction policy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00477-022-02351-7.