For years, environmental scientist Keith Loveridge has wondered if the air at one of Melbourne’s busiest train stations has been putting his health at risk.
“I got out of the train one day and I almost choked — I thought ‘oh my God’,” he recalled of one trip.
He’s talking about Southern Cross Station, which sees tens of thousands of commuters pass through its gates each day.
Located at the edge of Melbourne’s CBD, the station is the city’s hub for regional trains, coach services, and the airport shuttle bus.
Concerns over the impact of diesel fumes from those vehicles set Mr Loveridge on a quest for answers.
In 2007, he asked the private company overseeing management of the station for air-quality data — but he hit a brick wall.
A representative from Southern Cross Ptd Ltd, a subsidiary of Civic Nexus, told him the station met government project requirements and compliance and it would not enter any further discussion with him.
Outraged, he wrote back again to the station’s management insisting on access to the data from the previous 12 months.
“What are you hiding?” he asked.
“As a P/T user, and as I spend a fair chunk of my time at Southern Cross station, I want to see just what you guys are exposing me and the people who work there to.
“Smells like a cover up when you won’t send me the air quality test results…”
He received this response from the then-CEO Phillip Walker.
“You seem to be under some impression that we are compelled to provide information to you – that is not the case, we are a privately run organisation and as such we correspond with you out of courtesy not necessity,” Mr Walker wrote.
He went on to explain the station did not release its air monitoring data publicly because “testing methodology and the data is complex and we have no intention of engaging in a debate on the technical merits of the testing program”.
A Civic Nexus spokesperson told the ABC they had no comment to make on statements made more than 16 years ago.
Over the years, different organisations, including the Victorian Greens, have tried to access the same figures.
Last year, the ABC applied under freedom-of-information laws for air-quality data at the station.
After a nine-month freedom-of-information battle — including an appeal to the Victorian Information Commissioner — the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning released more than 500 pages of air pollution reports.
What those reports reveal has concerned two of the country’s leading respiratory experts.
They say the air pollution in parts of the station is so high that it puts human health at risk, and likely contains some of the “least clean air” in Melbourne.
They’ve also raised concerns the reports likely aren’t presenting the full picture.
Much of the data released was presented in images of graphs — with limited raw data available — making it difficult to sort through and understand.
Several of those graphs contained chunky lines, making it hard to decipher exactly what values were represented.
In order to more clearly display the information, the ABC used an online tool to extract numerical data by analysing images like the one shown above.
This is what the data reveals.
Respiratory physician says data raises health concerns
Lou Irving is one of Victoria’s leading respiratory doctors — head of the Lung Tumour Stream at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and a physician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
When Professor Irving read through the Southern Cross air monitoring data, he immediately noticed how high the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels were in the bus terminal area.
“The levels of NO2 appear to be higher than medically we would see as acceptable,” he said.
He pointed to Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria’s guidelines for NO2 levels in outdoor areas.
As shown below, the guidelines range from “good” to “extremely poor”.
For much of the past 12 years, levels in the bus station have been above 1,200 parts per billion when averaged over 24 hours.
That means some hourly readings would be much higher – and on most days air quality in the bus station was more than three times the EPA’s “extremely poor” threshold.
Near the train platforms, the data shows air quality is better, but still largely above the EPA limits for outdoor areas.
There are good reasons why authorities set guidelines for the concentration of NO2 in outdoor areas.
Professor Irving said the gas — which is produced when fossil fuels such as diesel are burnt — could make its way into the lungs and blood, causing inflammation throughout the body.
He said exposure to the gas and other diesel pollution could trigger asthma, as well as heart attacks and strokes, for people in susceptible health groups.
“Susceptible people would be the elderly, the very young, people with chronic lung diseases including asthma,” he said.
For pregnant women, it can mean increased risk of delivering premature and low birth weight babies.
Professor Irving said even short exposure periods could lead to negative health effects.
“I think if you’re a commuter and walk into an area that’s got high levels of traffic pollution, and if you’re susceptible, such as being an asthmatic or having chronic bronchitis, there’s a risk that your underlying lung condition … can be worsened,” he said.
For otherwise healthy people, Professor Irving said long-term exposure to diesel pollution could even cause asthma and lung cancer.
“From the measurements I have seen in this report, I would be concerned that this is one of the least clean air areas in Melbourne,” Professor Irving said.
He was also concerned key data was missing, such as the measurement of small particles known as PM 2.5, which can enter the lungs and bloodstream.
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Worker says many have raised concerns, but ‘nothing gets done’
John, who spoke to the ABC under a different name to protect his identity, has worked at Southern Cross Station for years.
“If you are standing near it, you’ll get a good whiff of it,” he said of the diesel fumes.
John said he often ended up coughing if he had to walk through a plume of smoke from a train, but he tried his best to hold his breath.
He said he was aware of half a dozen times staff had raised concerns with management about the pollution.
“No matter how many times it is brought up, nothing gets done,” he said.
He said trains sometimes idled for up to four hours at the station, and pregnant women had worked in the bus terminal and on the platforms where diesel pollution was most obvious.
He said he was also aware of one colleague who had left the job citing respiratory issues.
A health and safety log from workers for three years up until 2010 shows staff at that time were routinely reporting sore throats and eyes, nausea and some vomiting while working in noticeable diesel fumes.
They reported having to leave the ticket barriers and take breaks because of the emissions.
V/Line said the safety of its staff and passengers was its “number one priority” and that it was working to improve air quality at the station.
“V/Line also implements rotation of station staff operating working on platforms at Southern Cross Station and staff are encouraged to report any event of trains or coaches producing excessive smoke, and to remove themselves from the area,” a spokesperson said.
More data should be released for public good, expert says
Associate professor Robyn Schofield, who is Associate Dean of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Melbourne and one of the country’s leading air quality researchers, said the NO2 levels in the station’s bus bay and the station more widely were concerning.
“It’s much higher than you’d want it to be … if you’re exposed to that for a really long time, it’s far too high and it’s a really big risk,” she said.
Dr Schofield said the levels of two other pollutants measured at the station — dust and carbon monoxide — were harder to scrutinise due to the way the data was presented.
“Unfortunately it’s really difficult to know because we don’t have the raw data,” she said.
She said it was disappointing the air pollution data had taken so long to come to light.
“No-one likes pollution data,” she said.
“But hiding it from the public when it’s a public place, when the monitoring is happening, and it’s happening to a high quality because of the consultants being used … why not make it public?”
“It’s a public good, and people then can be making informed decisions about how they travel through that space.”
Unlike the government and Southern Cross Station’s operator, other government agencies do publish air-quality data.
For example, EPA Victoria publishes air-quality data regularly on its website, allowing Victorians to check results from several monitors across the state.
National air quality standards don’t appear to be based on best evidence
While the pollution data has often been exceeding limits set by the EPA for outdoor areas, both Civic Nexus and the government have long insisted it has been meeting all requirements.
“Air quality sampling undertaken by V/Line at Southern Cross Station has repeatedly shown levels are within acceptable limits,” a V/Line spokesperson told the ABC.
In some ways, that’s true — which only highlights the significant variation that exists between some of Australia’s air-quality guidelines and standards.
The station has been using Workplace Exposure Standards for NO2 set by the national body Safe Work Australia, which are regulated by WorkSafe Victoria.
These are the only standards they need to comply with under law and are very different to the EPA outdoor limits.
Those workplace standards for NO2 are 3,000 parts per billion averaged over eight hours and haven’t changed in more than 30 years, despite scientists’ understanding of the effects of air pollution developing a great deal.
At the same time, the World Health Organization has been tightening its recommendations.
It now sets a recommended NO2 threshold of 13 parts per billion averaged over 24 hours, to protect human health.
The Australian outdoor standards set by the federal government are 80 parts per billion averaged over one hour.
This means the station has been measuring itself against an air quality standard that allows for a much higher level of pollution than what other guidelines would say is safe.
The time frames of the standards are all different — depending on the body that set them.
It means only the WHO guidelines are directly comparable to the Southern Cross data — as they are both averaged over 24 hours.
For most of the data period, the bus station in Southern Cross Station has been more than 90 times the WHO guideline, sometimes more than 170 times higher.
Near the platforms, for most of the period it’s been more than 25 times higher.
Professor Irving said he struggled to comprehend the Safe Work Australia limit of 3,000 parts per billion, and it didn’t appear to be “health related”.
Dr Schofield said the Australian workplace standard was very lax.
She pointed out that in 2020 Safe Work Australia proposed to lower NO2 standards to 200 parts per billion over eight hours — one-fifteenth of what it is now.
“The best guideline that we have around at the moment for nitrogen dioxide, even in indoor environments, is the WHO guideline,” Dr Schofield said.
If Safe Work Australia did lower its NO2 standard to 200 parts per billion, the bus station in Southern Cross station would fail to meet legislated standards, and Civic Nexus and the government could be fined.
Safe Work Australia told the ABC that it had recommended the lower limit to protect for adverse health effects and it was still consulting stakeholders.
Recent improvements in air quality
While the data confirms years of very poor air quality at parts of the train station, it also suggests improvements have been made.
The FOI documents showed the NO2 levels in Southern Cross improved markedly when the station upgraded its Building Management System in 2022. Dr Schofield said the systems usually controlled ventilation and air flow.
Professor Irving said there were more changes that could be made at the station to improve air quality.
He said changing buses to electric power would help enormously, while in the meantime ventilation could be further improved.
Skybus said it had a policy to turn buses off after five minutes and to transform its fleet to zero emissions by 2035.
“Where we have not yet been in a position to convert the fleet to battery electric buses we monitor performance such as idle times to avoid unnecessary pollution and fossil fuel consumption,” said Michael Sewards, co-CEO of Kinetic, which owns SkyBus.
V/Line said it was modernising its fleet to reduce emissions and was working to reduce idling times where possible.
“We have proactively undertaken a range of measures to improve air quality at the station, including reducing train and coach idling times, upgrading train engines in our classic fleet to reduce emissions, closely monitoring air quality and we are regularly rolling out more modern VLocity trains,” a V/Line spokesperson said.
Civic Nexus, the private operator of Southern Cross Station, said it had formed a working group with stakeholders such as the Department and V/Line to enhance air quality at the station.
‘Through this Working Group we are reviewing the benchmarks and if there are ways our data collection can be further improved,’ said Nick Nick Easy, CEO of Infranexus Management, speaking on behalf of Civic Nexus.
A Victorian government spokesperson said the government was working towards zero emissions buses, and had invested in newer diesel V/Line trains.
“We are making a conscious effort to reduce emissions across our transport network – as we make significant investments in more efficient trains and zero emissions buses, which will be critical to achieving our world leading target of net zero emissions by 2045.”
The EPA said it had no current investigations of breaches of the Environmental Protection Act at Southern Cross Station for idling diesel train fumes, and that the Department of Transport was responsible for the management of diesel fumes within the station.
A spokesperson for the Department of Transport and Planning said it was working to implement practical solutions to improve the air quality as well as monitoring.
Rail worker John said if the decision makers had to breathe in the air at the station each day like he and his colleagues, he believed things would have changed already.
“Why doesn’t the Victorian government step in and protect staff?”
Source: ABC News
