Spatial Variation in Personal Exposure of Parking Attendants to Traffic Emissions in an Urban Conurbation

This study presents temporal and spatial variations in personal exposure of parking attendants in a busy conurbation in the northern part of the UK. Two traffic related pollutants - carbon monoxide (CO) and ultrafine particulates (UFP), mainly associated with urban drives, have been considered for two distinct locations- one, in the city centre and the other in a suburban area of Leeds, a prominent city in West Yorkshire. The monitoring of pollutants was conducted while parking attendants carried out their duty along the streets during different times of the year to capture the seasonal fluctuations. Our results show a wide variation in exposure levels for both CO and UFP, marked both by seasonal and daily characteristics. There seems to be considerable variations in exposure levels depending on the location of the parking attendants with respect to traffic activity. Specifically, the level of exposure closer to market areas within the city centre, despite located in open spaces but closer to congested streets were found to be much higher owing to frequent stopping, stopping and idling of cars in search of parking spaces. This demonstrates the merit in setting up transport interchanges and park-and-ride schemes away from busy streets to ameliorate the exposure levels.