Evaluation of Mobile Source Greenhouse Gas Carbon Dioxide Emissions for Assessment of Traffic Management Strategies

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in investigating the air quality benefits of traffic management strategies in light of challenges associated with global warming and climate change. However, there has not been a systematic effort to study the impact of a specific traffic management strategy on mobile source Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, in particular, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. This research is intended to evaluate mobile source CO2 emissions for assessment of traffic management strategies, in which a Portable Emission Measurement System (PEMS) is used to collect vehicle’s real-world emission data, and a Vehicle Specific Power (VSP) based modeling approach is used as the basis for emission estimation. By this approach, three case studies are designed for High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane, traffic signal coordination plan, and Electronic Toll Collection (ETC). In the HOV lane scenario, CO2 emission factors produced by the test vehicle using HOV lane and the corresponding mixed flow lane are compared. In the evaluation of traffic signal coordination, total CO2 emissions produced under the existing coordinated signal timing and the emulated non-coordinated signal timing along the same testing route are compared. In the ETC case study, total CO2 emissions produced by the test vehicle around an ETC station and an MTC station located on the same toll road segment are estimated and compared. The results indicate that HOV lane, well-coordinated signal timing, and ETC are all effective measures to reduce mobile source CO2 emissions, although the level of effectiveness is different for different strategies.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC70 Transportation Energy
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Shi, Qinyi
  • Yu, Lei
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 91st Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2012-1-22 to 2012-1-26
• Date: 2012

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Carbon dioxide; Exhaust gases; Greenhouse gases; Highway traffic control; Mobile sources
• Identifier Terms: Portable Emissions Measurement System
• Uncontrolled Terms: Emissions reduction; Vehicle specific power
• Subject Areas: Energy; Environment; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I15: Environment; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01368714
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 12-0343
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Apr 30 2012 7:53AM