Project Summary
Locomotives are essential for moving freight throughout California. The mostly commonly used locomotives are powered by diesel engines that emit significant amounts of air pollutants, including diesel particulate matter (DPM), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and Green House Gases (GHGs).
Locomotive emissions affect communities near rail operations and residents throughout the state, resulting in premature mortalities, increased cancer risk, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits. Many of the communities exposed to harmful locomotive emissions are environmental justice and Assembly Bill 617 communities, meaning the individuals within those communities already live with multiple layers of health burden.
To support the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) efforts to understand emissions from locomotives operating in the state, and to quantify locomotive activity and associated emissions within the State, enabling accurate emissions accounting for obligations such as the State Implementation Plan, the University of California at Irvine will develop recognition tools to identify information on locomotives passing surveillance stations in California.
Approximately 13,000 locomotives operate within California each year, many travelling in from outside the State. Surveillance will help to develop CARB understanding of locomotive operation, and when checked against existing data about locomotive certification levels, will help to quantify emissions, informing future policy. Full-time monitoring in multiple locations would necessitate extensive staff time to process and tabulate information. A recognition tool will bring greater understanding of locomotive emissions in the State.
The goal of the project is to place surveillance equipment, such as motion-triggered video cameras, at multiple surveillance stations throughout the State by the end of 2024. The recognition tool must isolate locomotives from among other rolling stock on the train, refine recorded information for readability, and record the locomotive identification number, operator identification, time, date, and location.