After pollution in Milan reached unhealthy levels for 30 consecutive days, city officials imposed on Monday a six-hour ban on vehicles to curb air pollution.
The ban is from 10 a.m. through 4 p.m. from Monday through Wednesday this week only. Because of the steep fines, Milan residents followed the vehicle ban, reports Associated Press.
Two other Italian cities imposed similar measures. Rome has an odd-even scheme based on license plate numbers, while Florence would limit vehicle entry to its center through Dec. 31.
Beside the three cities, seven others have limits on cars in some way as landlocked Italian cities grapple with air pollution, exacerbated by lack of rain and winds. Some residents have criticized the car bans as inefficient and instead suggested other methods to reduce air pollution.
Among their suggestions are providing more incentives to ride public transportation facilities, closing school heating systems for the duration of winter break and reducing home heating.
Meanwhile, in Beijing which has similarly imposed vehicle bans after two days of red alerts in December, two tech giants are providing air quality forecasting products to the city. IBM and Microsoft are offering cognitive computing machines programmed to improve modeling by providing more sophisticated forecasting software capable of predicting air quality index up to 10 days based on weather, traffic and traffic data and real-time pollution levels from government monitoring stations and social media posts, reports Reuters.
IBM launched in 2014 a Joint Environmental Innovation Center with Beijing's Environment Protection Bureau and inked an agreement with Zhangjiakou, joint host of the 2022 Winter Olympics with Beijing, to provide planning and scenario modeling before the international sports event.
Microsoft has agreements with China's Environment Ministry and the Environmental Protection Bureaus of Fujian Province and Chengdu City.