Analytical Model for Vehicle Emissions at Signalized Intersection: Integrating Traffic and Microscopic Emissions Models

Numerous studies in recent years have sought to quantify and evaluate the effects of traffic control and demands on vehicular emissions, such as CO2. In this paper, an analytical model has been developed based on kinematic wave theory in order to compute number of stops and the proportion of time spent idling and cruising based on the arrival flows at an isolated signalized intersection. The acceleration, deceleration, cruising, and idling are quantified and related to vehicular emissions. Since the magnitude, duration, and pattern of acceleration and deceleration play an important role in determining traffic emissions, real vehicle trajectories from Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) have been extracted in order to calculate typical characteristics of the acceleration and deceleration behavior of real drivers. Finally, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s microscopic emission model, Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES), has been implemented to estimate emission factors for each of the driving modes as measured from the NGSIM trajectories. By integrating the results with the analytical traffic model, total traffic emissions are easily estimated for a wide range of arriving traffic flows without the need for extensive microsimulations or additional data collection. The method is developed and illustrated with an analysis of CO2 equivalent, but the approach can be applied generally to any pollutant of interest. The results of this research show that as arrival flow increases, the contribution of emissions from vehicle stops dominates the total CO2 emissions on the road segment. The analytic expressions also facilitate other systematic analyses, such as evaluating the effect of residual queues on vehicular emissions along an intersection approach.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC20 Transportation and Air Quality.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Shabihkhani, Rooholamin
  • Gonzales, Eric J
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Carbon dioxide; Engine idling; Estimation theory; Exhaust gases; Kinematics; Signalized intersections; Traffic flow; Traffic models
• Identifier Terms: Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES)
• Uncontrolled Terms: Cruising; Emission models; Kinematic wave theory
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I15: Environment; I71: Traffic Theory;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01475734
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-5208
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 15 2013 9:48AM