Study on sensitivity of national annual pollutant emission from passenger cars to traffic patterns

BEBKIEWICZ, Katarzyna; CHŁOPEK, Zdzisław; STOSIO, Grzegorz; SZCZEPAŃSKI, Krystian; ZIMAKOWSKA-LASKOWSKA, Magdalena · 2017 · Crossref

DOI: 10.19206/ce-2017-428

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Summary

This study investigates the sensitivity of national annual pollutant emissions from passenger cars to variations in traffic patterns. The research addresses the challenge of accurately estimating vehicle movement parameters, which are critical inputs for emission inventory models but difficult to determine with precision. By quantifying how changes in the share of road lengths traveled under different traffic conditions affect total emissions, the authors aim to identify which parameters are most critical for modeling accuracy. The study utilized the COPERT 4 software, the standard tool for European Union vehicle emission inventories, to simulate emissions for the Polish automotive industry in 2015. The model incorporated data on the number of passenger cars (20.52 million total, split between spark ignition and compression ignition engines) and their annual mileage. Traffic patterns were defined by the share of distance traveled in urban, rural, and highway/expressway conditions, along with average velocities for each category. Two simulation scenarios were conducted: the first varied the shares of urban and rural traffic while keeping highway traffic constant; the second varied the share of highway traffic while keeping urban and rural shares constant. The simulations calculated annual emissions for carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) from both exhaust systems and tribological elements. The results demonstrated that national annual emissions for all analyzed pollutants exhibited relatively low sensitivity to changes in the share of road lengths traveled under specific traffic conditions. Across both simulation studies, the total national annual emission under all traffic conditions combined was the least sensitive to variations in individual traffic pattern shares. The graphical data showed minimal fluctuation in total emissions despite significant shifts in the proportions of urban, rural, and highway driving. This low sensitivity was consistent across different pollutant types and sources, including exhaust emissions and non-exhaust particulate matter. The findings suggest that precise estimation of the specific share of road lengths under model traffic conditions is less critical for determining total national emissions than previously assumed. This is a significant practical conclusion, as identifying these movement parameters is one of the most difficult tasks in emission modeling. The study implies that total emission models for passenger cars are robust against uncertainties in traffic pattern distribution. The authors note that this low sensitivity applies specifically to passenger cars and may differ for other vehicle categories, though those results are outside the scope of this work.

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