INTEGRATED APPROACH TO EXPLORE ROADWAY AIR IMPACT OF TRAVEL DEMAND AND TRAFFIC OPERATION FOR TRANSPORTATION SUSTAINABILITY ANALYSIS

摘要

Advanced traffic management, operation, control technologies and systems, and smart land-use planning have a great potential to alleviate highway congestion and reduce environmental impacts associated with vehicle travel. A challenge remains in quantifying and assessing the associated carbon footprint. The worst case scenario may be identified by analyzing insightful interactions between travel demand due to adaptive changes in land use and social economy and the impact of transportation activities on road emission and air quality. This paper presents a framework to address this need through developing a Geographical Information System (GlS)-based Roadway Air Impact Analysis (RAIA) system, housed in the Scenario-Based Planning Support System (SB-PSS) system. The RAIA system is established using an integrated approach in which outputs and inputs of travel forecasting model, vehicle emission model, and vehicle powered energy consumption model, are integrated heuristically and mathematically with data flows via input/output (I/O) interfaces. Additionally, the air quality measures such as Air Quality Index (AQI) based EPA established national air quality standards will be embedded into the GIS environment. The travel demand forecasting model estimates trips based on land use adaptation and social economic fabric; microscopic traffic simulation model stimulates the effectiveness of traffic operation and control strategies; vehicle emission model estimates the emission factors due to transportation activities; and vehicle powered energy consumption model estimates energy consumption. Within this ambiance, traffic-related emission and energy consumption demand could be forecasted based on various scenarios with the addressed factors. Such an integration effort will be greatly beneficial to identifying strategic solutions to design and operate transportation systems in a way that meets transportation needs while protecting the environmental health of all people, and provides supportive information for measuring and assessing sustainability and "greenness" of transportation systems.