Measuring Urban Bicyclists’ Uptake of Traffic-Related Volatile Organic Compounds Using Ambient and Breath Concentrations

Urban bicyclists’ uptake of traffic-related air pollution is still not well quantified, due to a lack of direct measurements of uptake and a lack of analysis of the variation in uptake. This paper describes and establishes the feasibility of a novel method for measuring bicyclists’ uptake of volatile organic compounds (VOC) by sampling breath concentrations. An initial data set demonstrates the ability of the proposed method to generate findings for transportation analysis, with statistically significant exposure and uptake differences from bicycling on arterial versus bikeway facilities for several traffic-related VOC. Breath concentrations of toluene, ethylbenzene, m-xylene, and o-xylene increased at 5-10% of the increase in exposure concentrations, which were more than 2 times higher on arterials than bikeways. The elasticity of breath to ambient concentration increases for these VOC ranged from 0.19 to 0.54, and breath concentrations were 19-45% higher after bicycling on arterials than after bicycling on bikeways. These results provide the first empirical evidence that the usage of bikeways (or greenways) by bicyclists within an urban environment can significantly reduce uptake of dangerous traffic-related gas pollutants. Dynamic concentration and respiration data reveal unfavorable correlations from a health impacts perspective, where bicyclists’ respiration and travel time are greater at higher-concentration locations on already high-concentration roadways (arterials).

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD50(1) Health and Transportation.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Bigazzi, Alexander Y
  • Luo, Wentai
  • Figliozzi, Miguel
  • Pankow, James F
  • Isabelle, Lorne M
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; Photos; References;
• Pagination: 15p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air pollution; Breath; Cyclists; Measuring methods; Organic compounds; Urban areas; Volatility
• Subject Areas: Environment; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01515414
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-4984
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 24 2014 8:42AM