Emission modelling of light-duty vehicles in India using the revamped VSP-based MOVES model: The case study of Hyderabad

Abstract

US-EPA’s MOVES is the new generation mobile source emissions model, which is built on Vehicle Specific Power based assumptions and that makes it suitable to apply anywhere in the world. In this paper, we have successfully modified MOVES model for application in Hyderabad, India. As the model’s default underlying “Federal Test Procedure-based Driving Cycle” cannot represent India’s driving conditions, we have used “Modified Indian Driving Cycle” and local light-duty vehicle-specific driving cycles to revise the emission rates. On average, based on deterioration rate comparison, the emission rates in India are 9.54, 8.37 and 9.45 times higher than the default US emission rates, for CO, HC and NOx, respectively. Based on the results analysis and background information from other studies, the faster degradation of local vehicles are due to different local operating conditions like worse traffic congestion/slower vehicle speeds and local road conditions. The project-level dispersion modeling-based validation results showed high R2 values of 0.656 and 0.648 for CO and NOx, when our newer emission rates were used. Based on available literature, this is the first attempt that tried to revamp the VSP-based emission model, MOVES, for Indian context. In this study, the real-world traffic operational data was used to replace the fundamental parameters in the MOVES model and this research can be used as a reference for MOVES application in India as it provides all the necessary details to revise the emission rates.