Motor Vehicles: Environment Protection

Lembit Öpik
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Transport what assessment has been made of the effects of (a) motorcycles and (b) cars on the environment in the period from 2006 to 2009.

Mr. Khan
The Department for Transport has not conducted a specific assessment on this subject. However, the Department did publish research on improving road transport emissions modelling in June 2009, which can be found at:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/environment/emissions/

This research includes an updated database of ‘road vehicle emissions factors’. These characterise the average emissions rates of different types of vehicles as a function of the average speed at which they are driven. This database includes emissions factors (both air quality and greenhouse gas emissions) for different sizes of cars and motorcycles.