Assessing The Effect Of Traffic Signal Control Strategies On Vehicle Emissions

In light of the problems of the worsened traffic congestion and environmental pollution, more and more advanced traffic management and control measures have been applied to the existing transportation network and its management systems. However, there has been a lack of effective methods on the quantitative assessment of the effects of various measures on vehicle emissions. This thesis is intended to establish a quantitative assessment approach for evaluating the effect of traffic management and control strategies on emissions. To this end, the research in the thesis investigates the derivation of real-road emission factors, microscopic traffic simulation, and vehicle emission models, as well as their corresponding relationships. In this context, the thesis first synthesizes the state-of-the-art on the relevant research. Then, it collects and compares the real world emission data on coordinated signal-controlled roads versus non-coordinated roads in Beijing, by which the level of emission pollution as well its distribution characteristics under the two control scenarios are analyzed and captured. Further, by integrating the Vehicle Specific Power (VSP)-based emission model and the microscopic traffic simulation platform, it estimates the vehicle emissions on the coordinated signal-controlled roads, and subsequently, assesses the effect of different traffic management and control measures on emissions. As far as the contribution of the thesis, it provides a new approach for the application of Portable Emission Measurement System (PEMS) technology to traffic management and controls.