01485115

Component

Since Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are believed to lead to global warming, emission of such gases are now considered an environmental threat that must be confronted. About 30% of the GHG emissions in the United States are from transportation sources. This is why, for most transportation improvements or policy decisions, the public and decision makers often want to know what effects an improvement or a policy decision will have on GHG emissions. Transportation planners and decision makers want to know to what extent are solutions within the realm of transportation planning and to what extent are they in the realm of other policy areas? How emissions are affected by congestion induced by population growth and maintaining economic vitality? How to address this GHG emission issues early in the planning process? To answer any such questions, planners and engineers need to estimate GHG emissions from roadway vehicles. How to estimate GHG emissions in planning stages of a project or at policy decision levels? The standard process involves running a travel demand model as well as a sophisticated vehicle emission model using tools such as MOBILE, MOVES, EMFAC, etc. Data requirements of most of these emission modeling tools strain the ability of travel demand models to produce needed inputs. Moreover, due to emission model’s complexity, time-consuming data collection, and staff and project budget constraints, it may not be feasible for transportation professionals to apply such sophisticated tools for estimating vehicle emissions for all sorts of transportation projects. Therefore, there is need to develop a quick and easy approach that would help planners/engineers to estimate GHG emissions with minimal data. With this need in mind, a simple methodology and tool have been developed for planning level estimation of GHGs. This paper is to provide an overview of the tool that can help estimate GHG emissions using either system-wide summary data or link-by-link travel model data. This paper will first provide an overview of the common approaches about applying travel demand model for roadway vehicle emission estimation. Several quick and easy vehicle emission estimation approaches will then be described for reference purposes. Finally, this paper will document the concepts, assumptions, and methodology of GHG emissions estimation along with data needs and default data that comes with the tool.

01483192

English

13p

2010

12th National Conference on Transportation Planning for Small and Medium-Sized Communities

Digital/other

CD-ROM; Figures; References; Tables

Air quality management; Decision making; Environmental protection; Global warming; Greenhouse gases; Policy analysis; Pollutants; Travel demand

Environment; Highways; I15: Environment

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jun 25 2013 1:56PM

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