Project Summary
Global warming has been of immense concern to the California state government in recent years. Consequently, one of the targets of AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is to identify and adopt regulations that will reduce emissions in 2020 to 1990 levels. Transportation has been identified as a significant contributor to total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE), GHG emissions from the transportation sector alone count for about 28% of total GHG emissions in the United States in 2007. Various mitigating actions have been identified to reduce GHG emissions from both technology and policy perspectives, such as cleaner alternative fuel vehicle technologies and stricter emission standards. However, the benefits of such measures can only be effectively evaluated through accurate and timely estimation of GHG emissions from transportation sources. This research will develop high fidelity vehicle activity models from vehicle re-identification and GPS-equipped mobile phone data to provide more accurate real-time GHG emissions estimates which will better harness the capabilities of state-of-the-art microscopic emissions models. These results will yield further insights into reducing GHG emissions from vehicular traffic and can help to determine best solutions that will minimize the threat to global warming.
