Brussels battles air pollution with high-tech, low-emissions zone

The 1.2 million residents of Brussels, the 325,000 people who enter the city every day for work — not to mention the millions of tourists who visit each year — are breathing a little easier today, thanks to a technologically advanced programme designed to improve air quality by prohibiting highly polluting vehicles from entering the city.

The scope of the Brussels Low Emission Zone (LEZ) programme is impressive. More than 300,000 cars, vans and buses enter the Brussels-Capital Region every day, where 200 strategically placed cameras equipped with automatic number plate recognition technology take 4 million license plate photos per day.

“That large stream of data comes to us every day,” says Dirk De Smedt, general director of Brussels Fiscality. “The data is then automatically compared in our database with data from the Vehicle Registration Service so that the technical characteristics of the vehicle are checked and compared against the rules of the LEZ.”

He adds, “For vehicles that are on the ‘blacklist’ and therefore cannot enter the LEZ, the identification of National Register data follows. This allows our tax officials to decide whether or not to impose a fine for the violation, after which the billing and accounting process starts automatically.”

De Smedt points out that European privacy rules are respected throughout the process: “Only when a person is fined is the personal data visible to the civil servant.”

How the LEZ works

DXC Technology created and continues to update the blacklist, which now stands at 430,000 vehicles but will grow every year as the clean air regulations become more stringent. DXC also manages the enforcement function, sending out fine notices to violators, collecting payments, sending reminders and handling debt recovery.

This was a logical extension of DXC’s 7-year relationship with Brussels Taxation that started when DXC designed a new system that enabled the Brussels tax administration department to digitally restructure and automate all its fiscal processes.

Air quality improvements

That SAP-based system facilitates both data processing and invoice processing, and the system was expanded to support the LEZ project in just 6 months.

The LEZ was rolled out in phases, with warning letters going out in July 2018 informing drivers of the new rules. In October 2018, Brussels Taxation began sending out the first fines — a hefty 350 euros per violation.

Another set of warning letters went out shortly thereafter, notifying residents of the tighter rules that went into effect 1 January 2019. So far, an estimated 6,500 fines have been levied on polluting vehicles, but the number of fines is declining over time, indicating that voluntary compliance is increasing.

Air quality tests are slated for the end of this year, and the numbers are expected to show improvement over last year’s baseline.

It is also expected that air quality will improve even more over time, as the rules become stricter each year. For example, in 2019, diesel cars over 19 years old are prohibited, but in 2020, diesel cars over 15 years old will be prohibited.

How DXC manages the complexity

The collaboration between Brussels Taxation, Brussels Environment, Brussels Mobility and DXC has a number of technological and policy-based dimensions.

The system had to be effective, accurate and fair. There had to be extensive public education to ensure awareness. And there had to be room for exceptions or derogations.

The first live test of the cameras and the back-end data processing systems occurred in January of 2018, and the rest of that year was spent doing an architectural study to determine where to put the cameras, building the database of 9.6 million vehicles and rolling out specific functions.

DXC also built a website where all vehicle owners, whether Belgian or foreign, can plug in their information and find out if their vehicle is allowed in the city. Even if an outside vehicle is allowed to enter, the driver must still visit the website and register the vehicle.

Click here to read the case study