Empirical investigation of the emission-macroscopic fundamental diagram

Abstract

• We analyse vehicle emissions in a multi-modal urban area using the pNEUMA dataset. • EPA’s microscopic emission model, project level MOVES is implemented. • We investigate aggregated relations between emissions and congestion patterns. • The macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) is extended to the emissions-MFD (e-MFD). • The spatiotemporal distribution of vehicle emissions is revealed in high detail. Vehicle emissions are a major contributor of air pollution in urban areas, with severe consequences for public health and the environment. This paper focuses on analyzing vehicle emissions in a multimodal urban context to better understand its determinants and investigate relations between emissions and congestion patterns. Thousands of naturalistic trajectories collected with a swarm of drones during the pNEUMA experiment are analyzed and EPA’s microscopic emission model, project level MOVES, is implemented to estimate vehicular emissions. The method is developed and illustrated with a CO 2 analysis. The results empirically show the aggregated relationships between congestion and vehicular emissions, while accounting for the individual characteristics of each trajectory. These systematic relationships on a network scale with the use of empirical data, allow us to extend the macroscopic fundamental diagram (MFD) to the emissions-MFD (e-MFD). The spatiotemporal distribution of emissions is also studied, highlighting areas with high concentration over the urban area.