Improving On-road Emission Estimates with Traffic Detection Technologies

Improving On-road Emission Estimates with Traffic Detection Technologies
Author: Hang Liu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN: 9781303462016

Transportation has been a significant contributor to greenhouse gas and criteria air pollutant emissions. Emission mitigation strategies are essential in reducing transportation's impacts on our environment. In order to effectively develop and evaluate on-road emissions reduction strategies, accurate quantification of emissions is the critical first step. The accuracy and resolution of the traffic measures needed by the emission models will directly affect the emission estimation results. This dissertation investigates the ability of traffic detection technologies to provide the traffic measures needed for accurate on-road emissions estimation. A review of traffic detection technologies is provided with insight into their capability and suitability for estimating emissions. The Inductive Vehicle Signature (IVS) system is identified as currently the most promising technology to couple with EPA's latest MOVES emission model for estimating emissions. Models and algorithms based on the IVS detection system are developed to generate the two most important traffic measures for emission estimation: vehicle mix and average speed. The performances of the models are verified using real-world data. Assuming the IVS system and the models developed are deployed to generate vehicle mix and average speeds, the accuracy and reliability of the emissions estimation results based on these traffic measures are evaluated by simulating the operations of the models in the field using NGSIM data. Very promising results are obtained, which clearly demonstrates the capability of the IVS system for on-road emissions estimation. A Real-Time Emissions Estimation and Monitoring System based on the IVS technology is implemented on the I-405 freeway to estimate operational emissions on the road in real-time. Although average speed has been the most common input into emission models, the MOVES model is capable of using second-by-second vehicle speed trajectories to estimate emissions more accurately. Vehicle speed trajectories are becoming increasingly available thanks to the proliferation of GPS-enabled personal navigation devices and smartphones. Crowd sourced GPS data can also be used by emission models like MOVES to estimate emissions. This dissertation studies the use of a limited number of GPS speed trajectories to estimate emissions for all traffic on the road. Two fundamental questions are answered by this work: 1) how can GPS data be used for emissions estimation, and 2) how does the penetration rate of the GPS probes affect the emission results. With the methods proposed in this study, it is found that emissions can be estimated with high accuracy and reliability with even a very small penetration rate of GPS probes, when combined with the vehicle mix data generated from the IVS system. Discussions on the applications of the proposed systems and methods to various emissions analysis scenarios are also provided in this dissertation.

Emission estimation based on traffic models and measurements

Emission estimation based on traffic models and measurements
Author: Nikolaos Tsanakas
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2019-04-24
Genre:
ISBN: 9176850927

Traffic congestion increases travel times, but also results in higher energy usage and vehicular emissions. To evaluate the impact of traffic emissions on environment and human health, the accurate estimation of their rates and location is required. Traffic emission models can be used for estimating emissions, providing emission factors in grams per vehicle and kilometre. Emission factors are defined for specific traffic situations, and traffic data is necessary in order to determine these traffic situations along a traffic network. The required traffic data, which consists of average speed and flow, can be obtained either from traffic models or sensor measurements. In large urban areas, the collection of cross-sectional data from stationary sensors is a costefficient method of deriving traffic data for emission modelling. However, the traditional approaches of extrapolating this data in time and space may not accurately capture the variations of the traffic variables when congestion is high, affecting the emission estimation. Static transportation planning models, commonly used for the evaluation of infrastructure investments and policy changes, constitute an alternative efficient method of estimating the traffic data. Nevertheless, their static nature may result in an inaccurate estimation of dynamic traffic variables, such as the location of congestion, having a direct impact on emission estimation. Congestion is strongly correlated with increased emission rates, and since emissions have location specific effects, the location of congestion becomes a crucial aspect. Therefore, the derivation of traffic data for emission modelling usually relies on the simplified, traditional approaches. The aim of this thesis is to identify, quantify and finally reduce the potential errors that these traditional approaches introduce in an emission estimation analysis. According to our main findings, traditional approaches may be sufficient for analysing pollutants with global effects such as CO2, or for large-scale emission modelling applications such as emission inventories. However, for more temporally and spatially sensitive applications, such as dispersion and exposure modelling, a more detailed approach is needed. In case of cross-sectional measurements, we suggest and evaluate the use of a more detailed, but computationally more expensive, data extrapolation approach. Additionally, considering the inabilities of static models, we propose and evaluate the post-processing of their results, by applying quasi-dynamic network loading.

Real-time Vehicle Emission Estimation Using Traffic Data

Real-time Vehicle Emission Estimation Using Traffic Data
Author: Anjie Liu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2019
Genre: Traffic flow
ISBN:

The current state of climate change should be addressed by all sectors that contribute to it. One of the major contributors is the transportation sector, which generates a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in North America. Most of these transportation related emissions are from road vehicles; as result, how to manage and control traffic or vehicular emissions is therefore becoming a major concern for the governments, the public and the transportation authorities. One of the key requirements to emission management and control is the ability to quantify the magnitude of emissions by traffic of an existing or future network under specific road plans, designs and traffic management schemes. Unfortunately, vehicular traffic emissions are difficult to quantify or predict, which has led a significant number of efforts over the past decades to address this challenge. Three general methods have been proposed in literature. The first method is for determining the traffic emissions of an existing road network with the idea of measuring the tail-pipe emissions of individual vehicles directly. This approach, while most accurate, is costly and difficult to scale as it would require all vehicles being equipped with tail-pipe emission sensors. The second approach is applying ambient pollutant sensors to measure the emissions generated by the traffic near the sensors. This method is only approximate as the vehicle-generated emissions can easily be confounded by other nearby emitters and weather and environmental conditions. Note that both of these methods are measurement-based and can only be used to evaluate the existing conditions (e.g., after a traffic project is implemented), which means that it cannot be used for evaluating alternative transportation projects at the planning stage. The last method is model-based with the idea of developing models that can be used to estimate traffic emissions. The emission models in this method link the amount of emissions being generated by a group of vehicles to their operations details as well as other influencing factors such as weather, fuel and road geometry. This last method is the most scalable, both spatially and temporally, and also most flexible as it can meet the needs of both monitoring (using field data) and prediction. Typically, traffic emissions are modelled on a macroscopic scale based on the distance travelled by vehicles and their average speeds. However, for traffic management applications, a model of higher granularity would be preferred so that impacts of different traffic control schemes can be captured. Furthermore, recent advances in vehicle detection technology has significantly increased the spatiotemporal resolutions of traffic data. For example, video-based vehicle detection can provide more details about vehicle movements and vehicle types than previous methods like inductive loop detection. Using such detection data, the vehicle movements, referred to as trajectories, can be determined on a second-by-second basis. These vehicle trajectories can then be used to estimate the emissions produced by the vehicles. In this research, we have proposed a new approach that can be used to estimate traffic generated emissions in real time using high resolution traffic data. The essential component of the proposed emission estimation method is the process to reconstruct vehicle trajectories based on available data and some assumptions on the expected vehicle motions including cruising, acceleration and deceleration, and car-following. The reconstructed trajectories containing instantaneous speed and acceleration data are then used to estimate emissions using the MOVES emission simulator. Furthermore, a simplified rate-based module was developed to replace the MOVES software for direct emission calculation, leading to significant improvement in the computational efficiency of the proposed method. The proposed method was tested in a simulated environment using the well-known traffic simulator - Vissim. In the Vissim model, the traffic activities, signal timing, and vehicle detection were simulated and both the original vehicle trajectories and detection data recorded. To evaluate the proposed method, two sets of emission estimates are compared: the "ground truth" set of estimates comes from the originally simulated vehicle trajectories, and the set from trajectories reconstructed using the detection data. Results show that the performance of the proposed method depends on many factors, such as traffic volumes, the placement of detectors, and which greenhouse gas is being estimated. Sensitivity analyses were performed to see whether the proposed method is sufficiently sensitive to the impacts of traffic control schemes. The results from the sensitivity analyses indicate that the proposed method can capture impacts of signal timing changes and signal coordination but is insufficiently sensitive to speed limit changes. Further research is recommended to validate the proposed method using field studies. Another recommendation, which falls outside of this area of research, would be to investigate the feasibility of equipping vehicles with devices that can record their instantaneous fuel consumption and location data. With this information, traffic controllers would be better informed for emission estimation than they would be with only detection data.

Modern Electric, Hybrid Electric, and Fuel Cell Vehicles

Modern Electric, Hybrid Electric, and Fuel Cell Vehicles
Author: Mehrdad Ehsani
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2018-02-02
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0429998244

"This book is an introduction to automotive technology, with specic reference to battery electric, hybrid electric, and fuel cell electric vehicles. It could serve electrical engineers who need to know more about automobiles or automotive engineers who need to know about electrical propulsion systems. For example, this reviewer, who is a specialist in electric machinery, could use this book to better understand the automobiles for which the reviewer is designing electric drive motors. An automotive engineer, on the other hand, might use it to better understand the nature of motors and electric storage systems for application in automobiles, trucks or motorcycles. The early chapters of the book are accessible to technically literate people who need to know something about cars. While the rst chapter is historical in nature, the second chapter is a good introduction to automobiles, including dynamics of propulsion and braking. The third chapter discusses, in some detail, spark ignition and compression ignition (Diesel) engines. The fourth chapter discusses the nature of transmission systems.” —James Kirtley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA “The third edition covers extensive topics in modern electric, hybrid electric, and fuel cell vehicles, in which the profound knowledge, mathematical modeling, simulations, and control are clearly presented. Featured with design of various vehicle drivetrains, as well as a multi-objective optimization software, it is an estimable work to meet the needs of automotive industry.” —Haiyan Henry Zhang, Purdue University, USA “The extensive combined experience of the authors have produced an extensive volume covering a broad range but detailed topics on the principles, design and architectures of Modern Electric, Hybrid Electric, and Fuel Cell Vehicles in a well-structured, clear and concise manner. The volume offers a complete overview of technologies, their selection, integration & control, as well as an interesting Technical Overview of the Toyota Prius. The technical chapters are complemented with example problems and user guides to assist the reader in practical calculations through the use of common scientic computing packages. It will be of interest mainly to research postgraduates working in this eld as well as established academic researchers, industrial R&D engineers and allied professionals.” —Christopher Donaghy-Sparg, Durham University, United Kingdom The book deals with the fundamentals, theoretical bases, and design methodologies of conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). The design methodology is described in mathematical terms, step-by-step, and the topics are approached from the overall drive train system, not just individual components. Furthermore, in explaining the design methodology of each drive train, design examples are presented with simulation results. All the chapters have been updated, and two new chapters on Mild Hybrids and Optimal Sizing and Dimensioning and Control are also included • Chapters updated throughout the text. • New homework problems, solutions, and examples. • Includes two new chapters. • Features accompanying MATLABTM software.

Proceedings of the 2022 12th International Conference on Environment Science and Engineering (ICESE 2022)

Proceedings of the 2022 12th International Conference on Environment Science and Engineering (ICESE 2022)
Author: Xueming Chen
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2023-03-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9819913810

This book consists of selected and presented papers from the 2022 12th International Conference on Environment Science and Engineering (ICESE 2022), which was held in Beijing, China, during September 2–5, 2022. The conference brought together innovative academicians and industrial experts in the field of environmental science and engineering in a common forum to promote their research and developmental activities. It also facilitated interchanging scientific information between researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners working abroad. The book includes topics such as environmental sustainability, sustainable cities, environmental restoration and ecological engineering, water resources and river basin management, water treatment and reclamation, air pollution and control, atmospheric physics, carbon capture and storage, waste minimization, and resource management, among others. This book is a valuable reference for those who work in these fields in academia and industry.

Individual and Environmental Determinants of Traffic Emissions and Near-road Air Quality

Individual and Environmental Determinants of Traffic Emissions and Near-road Air Quality
Author: Junshi Xu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre:
ISBN:

On-road motor vehicles are responsible for a considerable proportion of near-road air pollution. While background levels of air pollutants are continuously tracked by regional monitoring networks, assessing near-road air quality remains a challenge in urban areas with complex built environments, traffic composition, and meteorological variation, leading to significant spatiotemporal variability in air pollution. This research addresses current gaps in the literature on local traffic emissions and near-road air quality. This thesis first investigates the effect of traffic volume and speed data on the simulation of vehicle emissions and hotspot analysis. Traffic emissions are estimated using radar data as well as simulated traffic based on various speed aggregation methods. It provides recommendations for project-level analysis and particulate matter (PM) hotspot analysis. We further compare fleet averaged emission factors (EFs) derived from a traffic emission model, the Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES), with EFs using plume-based measurements. This second module stresses the need to collect local traffic information for a better understanding of on-road traffic emissions. Besides, we validate default drive cycles in MOVES against representative drive cycles derived based on real-world GPS data. The validation results are helpful for transportation planners to quantify uncertainties in emission estimation and employ appropriate methods to improve the estimation of on-road emission inventories. The third module develops eco-score models and evaluates the effect of various factors such as driver and trip characteristics on emission intensities. The results shed light on the impact of driving style on emissions and identify the most important factors affecting the amount of emissions generated by every individual driver. The fourth module focuses on the impact of traffic emissions on near-road air quality and presents the results of two different experiments. First, it explores the effect of various factors on near-road ultrafine particle (UFP) concentrations based on short-term fixed monitoring, which stresses the significance of using local traffic characteristics to improve near-road air quality prediction. In addition, it captures the distribution of truck movements in urban environments and investigates the impacts of land-use variables and detailed traffic information on near-road Black Carbon (BC) concentrations.