Abstract: Air pollution represents a growing problem for human and public health in large urban centers, a consequence of the lack of effective urban mobility planning resulting in the predominance of the use of individual transport, the main emission source in large metropolises. International experiences show the importance of a set of public policies and local/municipal management for mitigating atmospheric pollution and its effects. Thus, a study was carried out focused on the Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (MASP), an important economic center in Latin America, analyzing the evolution of air quality, through the temporal analysis of 18 monitoring stations distributed throughout MASP, between the years of 2005 and 2023, for the pollutants PM10, PM2.5, SO2 and NO2 and their relationship with public policies, as well as the mapping of persistent overtaking events, that is, events of high concentration of pollutants occurring in a large part of MASP and which have persisted for several days, 80% percentile. It was observed that there were improvements in pollutant concentrations, especially in the reduction of SO2 and PM10, with an average reduction of 10 ug/m3 of SO2 between 2005 and 2023, attributed to public policies such as the Vehicle Emissions Control Program (PROCONVE) and fuel updates, with the reduction of sulfur in diesel. Municipal intervention was also important, such as the implementation of the Maximum Restriction Zone on truck circulation. These public policies and municipal actions influenced the reduction of persistent events of poor air quality, as is the case with PM10, which saw an average decrease of 3 persistent overtaking events from 2015. Therefore, strengthening legislation and specific policies are essential to manage air quality regionally and municipally in order to continue reducing the concentrations of pollutants in large urban centers, mitigating the impacts that air pollution has on the health of populations in these regions of great density.

Keywords: Air pollution, Metropolitan Area of São Paulo, Public Policies and Air quality.