Modal emissions modeling with real traffic data

This report details the use of a modal emissions model to estimate the relative emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) due to changes in vehicle operating characteristics on urban roadways. The Davis Institute for Transportation Studies Emissions Model (DITSEM) was selected to demonstrate the emissions characteristics of different freeway operating conditions. Instrumented vehicle data collected in Houston, Texas provide a set of operating parameters for which CO emissions are estimated. These estimates are calculated for different times of the day on the same facility to determine the relative emissions levels from a representative vehicle traveling on the freeway. The research team examined 10 samples along three roadways (two freeways, and one arterial). Implausible results were found in data exhibiting high average speeds [>60 mph (96.54 km/h)] where average emissions rates were higher than those on the same roadway under congested conditions. This led to several conclusions of which the most important was that the DITSEM not be used with samples where the percent of the driving cycle greater than 60 mph squared/sec (96.54 km/h squared/sec) exceeds 9%. This limit represents the highest value from which the model was derived for this variable. In addition, it is noted that the speed instrumentation was not able to provide sufficient precision for meaningful analysis with the available data.