East West Center Research Program Seminar

Commuters Exposure to Air Pollution: Recent Studies in Hanoi, Vietnam and Jakarta, Indonesia. Sumeet Saksena, Fellow, East-West Center.
Hernani Yulinawati, EWC Degree Fellow. Most studies of air pollution in cities have concentrated on urban background air quality and its effects on people outside vehicles. Background levels are usually measured on roof-tops of buildings. However, scientific evidence suggests that road users of all kinds are exposed to higher levels of air pollution than the background data might suggest. Furthermore, the evidence indicates marked differences in the exposure levels of travelers by different modes. Research done in the US and Europe is not easily adaptable to Asia, given unique modes of transportation in the former such as two-wheelers and highly used bus systems.

Recently EWC and the University of Hawaii have conducted pilot studies in Hanoi and Jakarta. In Hanoi, investigators simulated typical commutes in Hanoi on four major roads – Truong Chinh, Giai Phong, Pham Van Dong, and Tran Hung Dao. They carried lightweight portable personal monitors (for particulate matter (PM) and carbon monoxide (CO)) on their selves and traveled within the city under controlled conditions in four modes of transportation – 2-wheelers, cars, buses and walking. The establishment of the first bus rapid transit (BRT) in Jakarta, TransJakarta Busway, in 2004 has been successful and is rapidly being expanded to three corridors in 2006 and six corridors will be added soon making it Asia’s largest BRT. This research was conducted in July 2006 to study the effects of BRT by measuring PM10 and CO exposures of people who commuted along south (Blok M) - north (Kota) corridor of Jakarta, 12.9 km length, using three different modes of travel.

Results in both cities indicated that personal exposures were much higher than ambient air concentrations and also higher than WHO and USEPA ambient air standards (though it should be noted that public standards do not exist for personal exposures).

Sumeet Saksena is a Fellow at the East-West Center. He has served on review committees of the World Health Organization and was a member of the Advisory Group, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He has served as a Fellow at The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi, India. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. His research interests include indoor air pollution, health risk assessment and public perceptions of environmental risks. He has conducted fieldwork in India, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Hernani Yulinawati is an East-West Center Degree Fellow 2003-2007 and a doctoral student at Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawaii. She holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from University of Hawaii and a Bachelor of Environmental Engineering from Trisakti University, Jakarta, Indonesia. Her research focuses on air quality management planning in megacities of Asia.

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East-West Center, Research Program

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Laura Moriyama, 808-944-7444, moriyaml@eastwestcenter.org

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