On-road mileage-based emission factors of gaseous pollutants from bi-fuel taxi fleets in China: The influence of fuel type, vehicle speed, and accumulated mileage

Abstract

Urban taxis tend to be high mileage vehicles, and therefore potentially a significant contributor to local air pollution. To investigate the on-road emissions of gaseous air pollutants from urban taxi fleets, the mileage-based emission factors (EFs) for 20 gasoline/CNG bi-fuel taxis in China were measured using the in situ monitoring system. It was found that shifting the taxis' fuel from gasoline to CNG could cause significant emissions reduction in CO, slight drop in HC and small increase in NOx. With the fuel shift from China-VI gasoline to GB 18047-2017 CNG, approximately 82% reduction in CO, 14% reduction in HC and about 14% more NOx was observed. With fuel shift from China-III gasoline to GB 18047-2000 CNG, the reductions were 65%, 6% and 11%, respectively. When the China-VI gasoline-fueled taxis travel at higher speed (60 km/h or higher), the vehicles emit approxiamtly ten times more CO than that at lower speed (20–50 km/h). The mileage-based NOxEFs was strongly and positively related to the vehicles' speed for the taxis fueled by China-VI gasoline and GB 18047-2017 CNG. The ratio of NOx and HC emissions from gasoline-fueled taxis is lower than that from CNG-fueled taxis. Considerable reductions of the mileage-based EFs of CO, HC, and NOx from China-VI gasoline- and GB 18047-2017 CNG-fueled bi-fuel taxis were recorded. The taxi vehicles with higher accumulated mileage (greater than 200,000 km) were found with higher CO and HC emissions, due to the deterioration of vehicle engine performance and the exhaust catalyst system.