Rudi Torfs

Flemish Institute for Technological Research | VITO · Sustainable Health

Background: For an accurate estimation of health benefits and hazards of utilitarian cycling, a prospective collection of bicycle usage data (exposure) is fundamental. Individual and environmental correlates are necessary to guide health promotion and traffic safety issues. Firstly, this study aims to report on utilitarian bicycle usage in Belgium...

Background: Environmental health effects vary considerably with regard to their severity, type of disease, and duration. Integrated measures of population health, such as environmental burden of disease (EBD), are useful for setting priorities in environmental health policies and research. This review is a summary of the full Environmental Burden...

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into bicycle accidents. Bicycle accident data and weekly exposure data were prospectively collected for one year to calculate the incidence rate (IR) of bicycle accidents. An accident was included if it occurred during utilitarian cycling, resulting in an acute injury with corporal damage. If an accident...

A case study has been performed which involved the full chain assessment from policy drivers to health effect quantification of lead exposure through locally produced food on loss of IQ in pre-school children at the population level across the EU-27, including monetary valuation of the estimated health impact. Main policy scenarios cover the period...

The current chapter discusses soil and dust ingestion, a potentially important pathway for non-dietary oral exposure, especially for children. Starting from clear definitions on what is meant by soil and dust and how they interrelate, it explores the several approaches that have been used to derive estimates of soil and dust ingestion rates. It con...

Time activity patterns are an important determinant of personal exposure to air pollution. This is demonstrated by measuring personal exposure of 16 participants for 7 consecutive days: 8 couples of which one person was a full-time worker and the other was a homemaker; both had a very different time activity pattern. We used portable aethalometers...

Commuting by bike has a clear health enhancing effect. Moreover, regular exercise is known to improve brain plasticity, which results in enhanced cognition and memory performance. Animal research has clearly shown that exercise upregulates brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF - a neurotrophine) enhancing brain plasticity. Studies in humans found...

Air pollution is a systemic risk embedded in environmental, political, social and economic systems. Risk assessments on air pollution therefore involve communication between several stakeholders at multiple scale levels. This study focuses on a small part of the risk assessment, evaluating actions or decisions on both policy and research fields usi...

Between 2002 and 2006, various exceedances of air quality directive 1999/30/EC were reported in a number of PM10 monitoring stations in Flanders. A study was carried out with the objectives: i) to identify and quantify the sources that have caused or have contributed to the exceedances over this period; and ii) to propose suitable emission reductio...

Using the MOBILEE methodology, we performed a detailed air quality assessment for three scenarios for the ring road around Antwerp, a major city in Belgium, using PM<sub align="right"> 10 </sub> and NO<sub align="right"> x </sub> emission inventories for 2003 (reference) and 2015 (projected future situation), followed by an assessment of the exposu...

This is the final report of the Belgian SHAPES project. It provides an overview of the work that the partners have done from 2007-2011 in the framework of the science for sustainable development programme of the Belgian federal Science Policy. In 2008-2009 several additional experiments have been carried out in a “cluster” project PM²TEN. The resul...

This is the final scientific report of the PM²TEN cluster project, a collaboration between SHAPES and PARHEALTH with links to ANIMO and SCOPE. The PM²TEN cluster has three major objectives: 1. the organisation of a scientific workshop enabling a peer review of the intermediary results of SHAPES and PARHEALTH by international experts 2. the planning...

This study aims at developing a mechanistic model for assessing exposure and health risks posed by indoor air pollution. The modeling approach is implemented in a computational platform that allows the interconnection between several steps of the full-chain assessment through proper models and algorithms. The integrated modelling environment compri...

The health enhancing effects of regular bicycling (e.g. commuter cycling) are well known, however this health benefit has also a negative aspect especially when safety is neglected. Bicyclists have a higher risk of being injured than any other group of road users. They are “unprotected” in traffic, despite being capable of reaching high speeds. Thi...

Minor bicycle accidents are defined as "bicycle accidents not involving death or heavily injured persons, implying that possible hospital visits last less than 24 hours". Statistics about these accidents and related injuries are very poor, because they are mostly not reported to police, hospitals or insurance companies. Yet, they form a major share...

This retrospective incidence-based cost-of-illness analysis aims to quantify the costs associated with female breast cancer in Flanders for the year prior to diagnosis and for each of the 5 years following diagnosis. A bottom-up analysis from the societal perspective included direct health care costs and indirect costs of productivity loss due to m...

We present results from the Belgian SHAPES project, a policy oriented research project in which all major cycling related health risks are evaluated in an objective way. In this paper we present a methodology to estimate the exposure of ultra fine particulate matter (UFP numbers) to cyclists and results of measurements performed while cycling in re...

Falling within the framework of a larger project (SHAPES), this study aims at explaining the spatial variation of bicycle use and accident risks for cyclists when commuting. Explanatory variables are those suggested by transport and urban geography theory (socioeconomic characteristics, distances, environmental characteristics, safety, etc.). Regre...

The Northern Campine region in the north-east of Belgium has a long history harboring polluting zinc industry. A recent study showed a significant correlation between cadmium exposure and lung cancer incidence in the area. During the last decades, increasing concerns lead to various measures to limit or eliminate the pollution. In order to assess t...

In this paper the long-term impact of an eco-driving training course is evaluated by monitoring driving behavior and fuel consumption for several months before and after the course. Cars were equipped with an on-board logging device that records the position and speed of the vehicle using GPS tracking as well as real time as electronic engine data...

This retrospective incidence-based cost-of-illness analysis aims to quantify the costs associated with female breast cancer in Flanders for the year prior to diagnosis and for each of the 5 years following diagnosis. A bottom-up analysis from the societal perspective included direct health care costs and indirect costs of productivity loss due to m...

Health Impact Assessment of Arsenic in the Environment and the Food Chain in Europe Sarigiannis, Dimosthenis*; Fantke, Peter†; Tiruchittampalam, Balendra†; Kummer, Ulrike†; Gotti, Alberto*; Travnikov, Oleg‡; Bierkens, Johan§; Torfs, Rudi§; Camilleri, Flavia* *European Commission-Joint Research Centre, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, I...

This paper explores the spatial patterns of bicycle use for commuting and the risk cyclists run being injured in a road accident when commuting to work in Belgium. Exploratory data analyses suggest that the observed differences in the use of the bicycle to get to work are strongly linked to the urban hierarchy: commuters are more inclined to cycle...

Estimating personal exposure to air pollution is a crucial component in identifying high-risk populations and situations. It will enable policy makers to determine efficient control strategies. Cycling is again becoming a favorite mode of transport both in developing and in developed countries due to increasing traffic congestion and environmental...

The Northern Campine region in north-east Belgium has a long history harboring the zinc smelting industry. In the last decades, increasing environmental and health concerns have resulted in measures to limit or eliminate the heavy metal pollution associated with these activities. A recent study showed a significant correlation between cadmium expos...

Exposure to environmental noise due to transport affects public health. Cardiovascular diseases, sleep disturbance and annoyance are the most-reported harmful effects of noise exposure. Here, the burden of disease due to transportation noise in Flanders is quantified based on the disability adjusted life year methodology (DALY), combining the burde...

Air quality policy has focussed on land-based emissions for decades. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that emissions from sea-going vessels can no longer be ignored. There is a growing need for detailed emission inventories to evaluate the impact of this transport mode on air quality and health.In this paper we present MOPSEA, an a...

Recent air quality studies have highlighted that important differences in pollutant concentrations can occur over the day and between different locations. Traditional exposure analyses, however, assume that people are only exposed to pollution at their place of residence. Activity-based models, which recently have emerged from the field of transpor...

In large-scale population exposure assessments, exposure monitoring studies are not applicable and air quality monitoring does not cover the entire study area. In these cases, air quality modeling approaches are often combined with residential information to perform indirect population exposure assessments. However, this static approach is often th...

This paper demonstrates how the environmental consequences of traffic measures can be evaluated using the simulation software VeTESS. VeTESS (VEhicle Transient Emissions Simulation Software) was developed within the EU 5th framework project DECADE (2001-2003) as a vehicle level simulation tool for the simulation of fuel consumption and emissions. I...

Numerous studies have shown a strong association between daily mortality and small particulate with a diameter of <10 microm (PM10) air pollution, but the effects of season have not always been well characterised. To study the shape of the association between short-term mortality and PM10 across seasons and quintiles of outdoor temperature. Daily d...

In Delhi, the capital of India, 70% of air pollution is due to vehicles (MOEF,1997). The fleet composition in Delhi is far different from any European or US city. Around 65% of the total fleet are motor-bikes (Two-wheelers). Only in 1990-91 emission standards came into force. The India-2000 (equal to the Euro I) standard was introduced in the year...

This study explores the relationship between the vehicle exhaust emissions caused by a trip and the characteristics of the driver involved. The hypothesis formulated is that certain “groups” of individuals produce more emissions (per kilometre) than others and therefore should be treated differently when aiming vehicle emission reduction. To suppor...

We demonstrate that accelerated policies beyond the steady improvement of technologies and the fleet turnover are not always justified by assumptions about health benefits. Between the years 2000 and 2010, particulate matter (PM) exhaust emissions from traffic in Flanders, a region of Belgium, will be reduced by about 44% without taking any extra r...

This study explores the relationship between the purpose of a trip and the vehicle exhaust emissions caused by the driving behaviour during this trip. More specifically, this research focuses on the difference in driving behaviour between commuter traffic and other traffic. The hypothesis formulated is that people driving to work produce more emiss...

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The effects of a local traffic and mobility plan on local air pollution were studied in a suburb of the city of Ghent (Belgium). Two versions of a traffic micro-simulation model of the area were built. Emissions on the original street network were compared with the future situation in which the speed limits and the traffic circulation are modified....

Introduction For almost 15 years the European Commission has supported the development and application of a framework for assessing external costs of energy use. In the ExternE (Externalities of Energy) project series, the impact pathway methodology has been developed, improved and applied for calculating externalities from electricity and heat pro...

The valuation of impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity is an example where the impact pathway approach cannot be applied fully, because quantitative knowledge on physical impacts and data on valuation are limited. In the context of valuing biodiversity a wide range of contingent valuation studies have been undertaken, which either focused on valui...

Although stricter standards for vehicles will reduce emissions to air significantly by 2010, a number of problems will remain, especially related to particulate concentrations in cities, ground-level ozone, and CO2. To evaluate the impacts of new policy measures, tools need to be available that assess the potential benefits of these measures in ter...

Dit hoofdstuk beschrijft de milieudruk van energiegebruik en energieproductie in Vlaanderen zoals gekend in 2004. Komen daarbij aan bod: eco-efficiëntie van de energiesector, energiegebruik in Vlaanderen, energie- en koolstofintensiteit van Vlaanderen, bevordering van rationeel energiegebruik of REG, energetische productie van de energiesector, mil...

Recent epidemiological evidence demonstrated a consistent association of severe health effects with ambient particulate matter. Reduced life expectancy, as well as hospitalisation for cardiorespiratory effects, and exacerbation of diseases such as asthma and COPD have been reported in international literature, in correlation with increased levels o...

Report in Dutch! This report defines environment, indoor air quality and related health. It describes the current policies on air quality and responsibility from the different actors in the field. The reports end with the scientific angle of indoor air quality and presents a list of priorities.

'l'he yearly reports on the environment and nature in Flanders (MIRA) ensure the scientific foundarions for environmental policy plans. MIR4 uses indicators to describe and analyse the environment. Indicators summarise the available knowlcdgc anti n~akc i t as accessible. as can be to the policy and to the public at large. In putting the indicators...

Over the last years, a myriad of road transportation problems have been subjected to an analysis of emissions and environmental external costs. Other modes of transportation have been studied with much less diligence despite overt interest of policy makers. In this paper we present the results of two case-studies from Belgium where inland shipping...

Diesels maken een steeds groter deel uit van de nieuwe personenwagens die in Europa worden verkocht. In België heeft nu meer dan één op twee nieuwe personenwagens een dieselmotor. Naast de sterk verbeterde technologie, is dat vooral te danken aan de Belgische fiscale politiek met erg lage accijnzen op diesel brandstof. Deze evolutie heeft in versch...

Diesel cars take up a growing share of the passenger car market, and for Belgium this goes up to 55%. In addition to improved diesel technology, diesel has been 'promoted' by Belgian fiscal policy because excises on diesel fuel are lower. This has sparked a debate on the environmental consequences of the shift to diesel. In this paper we examine wh...

Environmental policies require a careful balance of costs and benefits, and therefore methodologies and tools are necessary that allow for the assessment of the benefits of environmental policies in economic terms. The paper will demonstrate such approach for air quality management in Belgium, within a European context. The European ExternE projec...

The main objective of this paper is to track the changing importance of air pollution impacts by Belgian passenger cars. Our assessment of environmental impacts is based on the calculation of external costs with the ExternE methodology. Our results show that the decline of air pollution impacts from Belgian passenger cars between 1993 and 1998 was...

Cifuentes et al. have pointed out that reducing the amount of fossil- fuel combustion to slow down the build-up of greenhouse gas (GHG) has significant secondary effects on public health. We do not question the important health effects reported, but we question the suggestion that they should be considered a primary target of policy-makers and that...

The emissions and environmental external costs of transportation for Belgium were investigated using Monte Carlo methods. The parametric uncertainty of aggregating marginal impacts in estimations of car parks, kilometers driven and emissions was also discussed. The most important factors that contribute to the uncertainty of the estimate for 2010 a...

Against a background of growing transport demand and congestion, EU transport policies have focussed on tighter emission standards for new vehicles. This paper evaluates the results of these policies by looking at the total air pollution externalities of road transport for the UK and Belgium. These results were obtained within recent the European E...

De samenvatting is integraal te raadplegen op http://www.milieurapport.be/nl/publicaties/toekomstverkenningen/mira-s2000/

The objective of this paper is to present intermediate results of ongoing research projects concerning the assessment of marginal, external costs of transport in Belgium. These studies cover all environmental impacts from different modes (road, railway and waterway) for both passenger and goods transport. Within each transport mode, distinction is...

Externe kosten zijn alle kosten verbonden aan een product die niet in de marktprijs zijn ingerekend. Als typische voorbeelden van externe kosten gelden de schadelijke effecten van verkeersemissies op mens en milieu. De resultaten van het recente Europese ExternE (externalities of energy) Transport project tonen aan dat deze externe kosten belangrij...

The objective of this paper is to present intermediate results of ongoing research projects concerning the assessment of marginal, external costs of transport in Belgium. These studies cover all environmental impacts from different modes (road, railway and waterway) for both passenger and goods transport. Within each transport mode, distinction is...

This paper compares the environmental impacts over the entire life cycle from biodiesel from rapeseed and conventional diesel. The emissions over the full life cycle are weighted using both a traditional LCA (life cycle assessment) approach and an external costs analysis. The emission data refer to the demonstration project at VITO on the use of ra...

The extended EUROS model has been used to calculate concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 for Europe for the years 2002 and 2010 using a recent emission scenario. The obtained results for Belgium show decreases in PM-concentrations between 5 and 26% in this period, depending on the location. The contribution of anthropogenic sources in Flanders to annua...

This study presents the first Flemish monitoring campaign on indoor air quality in children's living environment. The main aim of the study was to determine for sensitive groups of children the indoor environment exposure a result of contaminants that occur in the outdoor and indoor air, and to quantify the relative importance of ambient and indoor...

When the first Daughter Directive (1999/30/EC) relating to limit values for NO x , SO 2 , Pb and PM 10 in ambient air came into force in July 1999, this was the result of a careful examination of all available evidence. It was sufficiently clear that PM 10 posed important health problems, and that there was a need to monitor and control PM10 concen...