Application of the ISHTAR Suite for the assessment of the health effects of Rome environmental policy

摘要

The ISHTAR Suite is an innovative software tool that integrates several models for the simulation of the effects of transport and land use policies on the urban environment, population health and artistic heritage. Starting from the simulation of the effects of the postulated measure on the citizens behaviour in terms of daily movements, the suite calculation path goes through the modelling of transport, vehicles safety and emissions of pollutants and noise, pollutants dispersion and noise propagation, exposure to pollutants, noise and accidents and related risk assessment, monuments degradation, up to the overall comparison of the alternative scenarios in terms of cost-benefit or multi criteria analysis. The software modules are integrated by a Suite Manager that controls the tools execution by means of dedicated software 'connectors', and is linked to a User Interface, a suite database and a commercial Geographic Information System. The ISHTAR Suite is now being tested in the seven cities involved in the FP5 EESD Programme ISHTAR Project: Athens, Bologna, Brussels, Graz, Grenoble, Paris and Rome, with the analysis of different measures and policies. In the Rome application the effects on health of a traffic banning policy were studied.