Title: A congestion sensitive approach to modelling road networks for air quality management

Authors: James O'Brien; Anil Namdeo; Margaret Bell; Paul Goodman

Addresses: Transport Operations Research Group (TORG), School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, UK ' Transport Operations Research Group (TORG), School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, UK ' Transport Operations Research Group (TORG), School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, UK ' Transport Operations Research Group (TORG), School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University, NE1 7RU, UK

Abstract: This research establishes an approach to modelling a congested road network for air quality management, which enables the assessment of traffic management solutions that may create only subtle changes in the traffic flow regimes. Road network emissions have been calculated using standard factors taking into account details of vehicle fleet composition, average speeds and road type. Additionally, the use of microsimulation traffic modelling in conjunction with an instantaneous emissions model (IEM) has been adopted to allow comparison between methodologies and enable congestion sensitive analysis of the impact of air quality management measures on the network. Findings from microscale modelling have revealed that the use of an IEM to calculate emissions as an input for air quality dispersion modelling significantly improved the performance of the dispersion modelling when measured against monitored data. Moreover, this methodology has been successfully applied to assess the performance of a traffic scheme in Durham, UK.

Keywords: air quality; air pollution; vehicle emissions; instantaneous emissions model; IEM; microsimulation; dispersion modelling; traffic congestion; road networks; traffic management; traffic flow; UK; United Kingdom; vehicle fleet composition; average speeds; road type; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2014.065122

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2014 Vol.54 No.2/3/4, pp.213 - 221

Published online: 29 Oct 2014 *

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