Urban air pollution is one of several major atmospheric
pollution problems or environmental risks currently
confronting the world's population. When it is
realised that the health of 1.6 billion people may be at
riskfrom poor urban air quality, it becomes clear that the
issue ranks alongside such international problems as acid
rain, stratospheric ozone depletion and even global
warming (Elsom, 1996). Air pollution is a growing problem
because of rising urban populations, unchecked
urban and industrial expansion and the phenomenal
surge in the number and use of motor vehicles. Research
in the UK by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution
(1993) as well as reports by the House of Commons
Transport Committee (1994) and the Royal Commission
on Environmental Pollution (1995) support the current
consensus that urban tra$c should be the focus of policy
action if air quality is to be improved. In this respect
urban air pollution represents a thoroughly social problem
* as too its resolution. If a durable improvement is
to be achieved, a shift in personal behaviour, in particular
the decisions that people make about transport choice,
toward a more sustainable way of life is fundamental.
The corollary to this is that the public will have a major
stake in the determination of future programmes for
dealing with air pollution (Department of the Environment,
1997). An intrinsic knowledge of people's perception
of environmental problems, and in this instance
urban air pollution, is therefore vital. It is within this
policy setting that the recent growth of interest, both
academic and political, in the study of public perception
in relation to the environment and sustainability is set.
&O$cial reports now present a sustainable world as
requiring the participation of everyone, providing knowledge,
making decisions and changing their daily routines'
(Myers and Macnaghten, 1998, pp. 333}334).
However, scant attention has so far been paid to the
problem of urban air quality. Of relevant studies the
majority are public opinion surveys carried out in
the United States almost three decades ago. Since this
time there have been major changes in the principal types
and sources of pollution and in the social context within
which these are &perceived'.