Abstract

Increasingly, the Chinese metropolitan transportation organizations face many challenges ahead, as they try to meet the Nation's mobility requirements, decrease congestion impacts, and improve the level of air quality. However, the previous modeling tools (for example, land use, travel demand, and emission models) were not designed, nor do they generally provide visible feedback between adjacent procedures during the whole planning approach. Consequently, the preparation of a comprehensive database of traffic induced pollutant emissions in the form of an emission inventory is one of the basic tools for assessing the impact of regional development, population trends, and infrastructure improvements on air quality. The MOBILE 5 model is used to estimate emissions from both stationary and mobile motor vehicles, including: (1) identification of exhaust emission resource; (2) determination of emission index by vehicle type and size; (3) modeling the atmospheric pollutant diffuseness model across segment and intersection; (4) evaluation of traffic induced air pollution over network. The proposed approach is successfully applied to the Xi’an Metropolitan Area. The Base Case for the area generated emission estimators for hydrocarbons, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and oxides of nitrogen. The modeled outputs provide a reasonable match for future strategies and policies in the study area, and successfully propose interventions to guide fuel consumption in planning schemes over the next five to ten years.

Key words: Transportation planning, air quality, vehicle emission index, MOBILE 5, fuel consumption.