01474104

Component

Demand for public transit, goods movement and road transportation increases as a direct result of population growth in large cities. As a consequence, total air pollution emitted from mobile sources also increases. Canada, as a country with already high amounts of resource-based greenhouse gas production, must rein in metropolitan air pollution levels if it wishes to improve its status on the world stage. As such, this study presents a framework for estimating mobile source emissions at the macro level for Canadian urban areas. Several air pollutants – including PM10, which has been identified by Environment Canada as toxic to human health – are considered in this exercise, and summarized using a Principal Component Analysis. Aggregate emissions for commercial vehicles, transit buses, and personal vehicles are estimated for six cities: Toronto, Ontario; Vancouver, British Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; Hamilton, Ontario; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and St John’s, Newfoundland, and compared to various built form and travel behaviour attributes for each respective city. The results indicate that population, travel to work behaviour, and various built form attributes indeed impact transportation emissions at the citywide level. Given that this work is the first of its kind in Canada, the conclusions presented in this paper are an important first step in researching urban transportation emissions in the Canadian context.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADC20 Transportation and Air Quality.

01470560

13-1498

English

18p

2013

Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Air pollution; Exhaust gases; Mobile sources; Travel behavior; Urban areas

Canada

Environment; Highways; I15: Environment

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2013 Paper #13-1498

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Feb 5 2013 12:23PM