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167829-1 Report Abstract

Analyze the Impact of Traffic on Air Quality and Select Appropriate ITS Strategies for Emissions Mitigation

Zhong Wang and C. Michael Walton, University of Texas at Austin, November 2004, 96 pp. (167829-1)

This report presents a framework for analyzing the air quality impact of transportation sector and selecting appropriate Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) strategies to reduce mobile source emissions. First within a GIS framework, the mobile source emissions are estimated on the basis of vehicle fleet composition, emission factors and traffic characteristics. Then, a concise four-step method is proposed to select ITS strategies to reduce traffic emissions according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) ITS planning process version 2.1. Following the four-step method, the appropriate ITS strategies can be identified and their potential benefits and impact can be evaluated. In this study, the emission problems are defined based on the emissions modeling within a GIS framework. The ITS strategies are screened under the guidance of the National ITS Architecture. The identified ITS strategies are evaluated by doing experiments with ITS Deployment Analysis System (IDAS). A case study was performed in Austin, TX. It shows that the proposed emissions modeling method and the ITS strategy selection method is very helpful for regional ITS planning and evaluation. The methods and results from this report will be very useful for decision-makings in ITS investments and deployments.

Keywords: Air Quality, Emissions, Geographic Information System (GIS), Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), ITS Evaluation, ITS Planning, Incident Management System

ENTIRE REPORT (Adobe Acrobat File – 1.3 MB)