Investigating the Impact of Meteorological Conditions on Near-Road Pollutant Dispersion between Daytime and Nighttime Periods

Abstract

In urban areas in Texas and the rest of the United States, roadway work zone and construction activities are often conducted at night to reduce disruption to traffic and to prevent congestion caused by lane closures during peak hours. The reduced traffic delays due to nighttime construction have the potential to reduce traffic emissions. However, the air quality impacts associated with moving these activities from daytime to nighttime have not been studied in detail. Air quality impacts depend on two major factors: the traffic emissions and meteorological conditions. While the impact of traffic emissions between time periods has been studied in the literature, there is limited knowledge on understanding the impact of meteorological conditions on the dispersion of mobile source pollutants. This study specifically addresses this gap by evaluating the impact of the meteorological conditions on pollutant concentrations under different input settings related to the region, land use, distance from roadways, and averaging periods. The assessment of the impact of metrological conditions indicated that for the same amount of emissions, the nighttime period could result in higher pollutant concentration levels. However, given that traffic congestion and overall traffic volumes are generally substantially lower in the nighttime period, the findings do not imply that nighttime construction activities result in worse air quality in terms of pollutant concentrations. Thus, the relative difference in pollutant concentrations obtained from shifting construction activities from daytime to nighttime periods should be assessed based on a combination of meteorological and traffic conditions.