TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gerber, Alexander
A1  - Bohn, Julia
A1  - Groneberg, Jan David Alexander
A1  - Schulze, Johannes B.
A1  - Bundschuh, Matthias
T1  - Airborne particulate matter in public transport : a field study at major intersection points in Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
T2  - Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology
N2  - Background: Chronic particulate matter (PM) exposure is correlated to various health effects, even at low amounts. WHO has defined PM concentration limits as daily and annual mean values which were made legally binding in the European Union. While many studies have focused on PM concentrations in special environments, little is known about the average PM- exposure for both employees and passengers in the German public transportation system.
Methods: Particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5, PM1) - concentrations were monitored for 30 minutes at 15 different areas in Frankfurt am Main with major public traffic. Maximum and mean concentrations and, as a surrogate for the inhaled dosage, the Area Under the Curve (AUC) for 15 minutes of exposure were calculated.
Results: The WHO limits for PM10 and PM2.5 were exceeded at nearly all times and areas. Highest maximum concentrations were found at underground stations, subterranean railway stations and subterranean shopping arcades with much lower values obtained at surface points. In one measurement at a surface test point smokers who neglected the non-smoking policy could be identified as a major cause for a at least temporary strong increase of PM-load as seen in high maximum values and normal averages.
Conclusions: Subterranean areas have high particulate matter contamination exceeding WHO limits. Improvement may be achieved by increased ventilation. Subterranean shops and kiosks, being workplaces with long term exposure, should be equipped with external air supply. The non- smoking policy of the "Deutsche Bahn" for public spaces should be enforced.
Y1  - 2014
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/33580
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-335804
SN  - 1745-6673
N1  - © 2014 Gerber et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
VL  - 9
IS  - 13
PB  - BioMed Central
CY  - London
ER  -