Estimating Road Transport Pollutant Emissions Under Traffic-Congested Conditions with an Integrated Modelling Tool—Emissions Reduction Scenarios Analysis

• Published in: Emission control science and technology (Online) Vol. 7; no. 2; pp. 137 - 152
• Main Authors: Liora, Natalia, Poupkou, Anastasia, Kontos, Serafim, Meleti, Charikleia, Chrysostomou, Katerina, Aifadopoulou, Georgia, Zountsa, Stella, Kalogirou, Chrisostomos, Chacartegui, Ricardo, Liguori, Francesca, Bressan, Massimo, Almeida, Susana Marta, Melas, Dimitrios
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01-06-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Air quality; Atmospheric models; Automobiles; Boundary layer flow; Boundary layers; Bus stops; Buses; Buses (vehicles); Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide emissions; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Electric vehicles; Emissions; Emissions control; Environmental Science and Engineering; Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering; Motorcycles; Nitrogen oxides; Pollutants; Pollution dispersion; Redesign; Reduction; Road transportation; Roads; Roads & highways; Surfaces and Interfaces; Sustainable transportation; Thin Films; Traffic; Traffic congestion; Traffic flow; Traffic models; Traffic signals; Traffic speed; Urban transportation; Vehicle emissions; Integrated Modelling Tool; Traffic emissions reduction scenarios; COPERT Street Level; Road traffic emissions
• ISSN: 2199-3629; 2199-3637
• DOI: 10.1007/s40825-021-00191-5

This study aims to investigate, in microscale, the pollutant emissions due to road traffic under traffic-congested conditions at street level and the impacts on air quality of traffic emissions reduction scenarios by applying an Integrated Modelling Tool (IMT) for a main road axis in Thessaloniki, Greece. ΙΜΤ links a real-world traffic model, a dynamic emissions model and a Lagrangian dispersion model coupled with a boundary layer flow module. Pollutant emissions from cars at edges with traffic lights were + 30% higher than those estimated at other edges while NO
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emissions were + 22% higher at the edges with bus stops. A comparison of the IMT and COPERT Street Level emissions results showed that the IMT emissions were higher than the COPERT Street Level emissions for roads with traffic lights or bus stops, characterized by high variability in vehicle speed per second due to stopping and accelerating. This resulted in up to 2 times higher NO
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emissions. IMT was applied to assess the impact on the atmospheric environment of the redesign of the road axis promoting sustainable urban transportation. A reduction by − 20% of the cars and motorcycles traffic flows in combination with the increase by a factor of 2 of the frequency in the circulation of city buses replaced with battery electric vehicles will result in lower pollutant and CO
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emissions ranging from − 29 to − 41%. Reductions of about − 65% in the road traffic NO
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maximum concentration levels were also estimated.