Project Summary
Transportation has been a significant contributor to total greenhouse gas and criteria air pollutant emissions. Emission mitigation strategies are essential in reducing transportation’s impacts on the environment. In order to effectively develop and evaluate on-road emissions reduction strategies, it is important to have an information support system which can estimate and monitor emissions for real world traffic operations. Emission data provided by such a system can be used to identify emission hot spots and their causes, and to develop and evaluate reduction strategies accordingly. In this research, a web-based support system is proposed to estimate and monitor operational on-road emissions with high accuracy and resolution in real time. The two sets of critical information, vehicle mix and vehicle activity, are directly generated from traffic detection using the inductive vehicle signature technology. The models developed in this study to generate stratified speed by vehicle type, an important measure for accurate emission analyses, will be applied for a proof-of-concept implementation on sections of the I-405 freeway. Case studies will demonstrate how to use the data from the system to make useful decisions and evaluations. With more widespread deployment, the system can be used to perform before-and-after evaluation of certain mitigation strategies, to develop time sensitive optimal traffic control strategies with the purpose to control emissions, and to provide greenhouse gas and air quality information to policymakers, scientists, and the general public.
