Air Emissions Cost Savings of Low-Level, Light-Duty Automated Vehicles in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Automobile air emission causes immediate and long-term effects on the environment. Reducing environmental costs of automobiles’ air emission is an important social goal. This study evaluates air emissions and fuel cost savings of low-level automated vehicles in 86 metropolitan areas in the U.S. based on county specific external air emission morbidity, mortality and agricultural costs. Twelve low-level automated technologies were investigated to estimate their impacts on fuel consumption, CO₂, CO, NOₓ, PM₂.₅, SOₓ, NH₃, and VOC. The authors developed a framework to analyze automated technologies direct and indirect impacts: accident-related congestion reduction, non-accident-related congestion reduction, aerodynamic force reduction, equipment’s operational load, and traffic rebound. The results show Low-level automated vehicles could reduce the total air emissions’ marginal cost up to 25 billion USD2016 and gasoline consumption up to 18 billion USD2016 in the 86 U.S. metropolitan areas annually. This study further reveals automated vehicles result in different environmental cost savings per vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in different metropolitan areas. New York-Newark, Chicago, and Atlanta have the highest environmental cost savings per VMT. Each low-level automated technology’s performance also varies from one metropolitan area to another. For example, adaptive cruise control and cooperative adaptive control result in the highest cost savings in New York-Newark, while parking aid system and dynamic route guidance provide the highest cost savings in Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana. Based on the results, recommendations are proposed for decision makers to develop targeted adoption strategies. Targeted adoption and promotion of automated technologies could maximize the society’s overall environmental cost savings.

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

  Transportation Research Board

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Vasebi, Saeed
  • Hayeri, Yeganeh M
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References;
• Pagination: 7p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Environmental impacts; Light vehicles; Metropolitan areas; Pollutants; Vehicle miles of travel
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01698071
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-05682
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 1 2019 3:51PM