Evaluating vehicular emissions with an integrated mesoscopic and microscopic traffic simulation

    Authors

    T. M. N. Sider; A. Alam; W. Farrell; M. Hatzopoulou;N. Eluru

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Can. J. Civ. Eng.

    Keywords

    mesoscopic traffic simulation; microscopic traffic simulation; emissions; modelling; transportation environmental impacts; greenhouse gases; PARTICULATE AIR-POLLUTION; LONG-TERM EXPOSURE; HEALTH; MODEL; ASSOCIATION; DISEASE; PLANS; Engineering, Civil

    Abstract

    This paper demonstrates the implementation of a traffic simulation linked with instantaneous emissions modelling and is used to evaluate the effects of street closures and area-wide pedestrianization on vehicle-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The study is set in Montreal, Canada where traffic in a dense borough (8656 links) is simulated in a dynamic traffic assignment mode to generate second-by-second speed profiles along every link in the 7-8 AM period. Instantaneous speeds are then used to estimate link-level and intersection-level emissions. The traffic demand at the borough boundaries is simulated using a mesoscopic traffic assignment model developed for the Montreal metropolitan region (127 217 links). Street closures and area-wide pedestrianization schemes are modelled within the microscopic as well as the mesoscopic models to evaluate their effects on greenhouse gas emissions, both while accounting for changes in demand and under constant demand. In all cases, we observe an increase in borough-level greenhouse gas emissions compared to the base-case scenario indicating that such schemes do not lead to a reduction in emissions even when accounting for changes in demand. We also compare emissions calculated using the microscopic models (traffic and emissions) and those obtained from the mesoscopic assignment (traffic and average-speed emissions) and observe that the regional model is much less sensitive to local-level changes mostly due to the incapacity of simulating accelerations and decelerations and therefore underestimating the changes in borough-level emissions compared to the base-case scenario. This indicates the importance of adopting instantaneous emissions models for the evaluation of changes to street configuration.

    Journal Title

    Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering

    Volume

    41

    Issue/Number

    10

    Publication Date

    1-1-2014

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    856

    Last Page

    868

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000343932400002

    ISSN

    0315-1468

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