Prototype tool for sustainable transport and city management
The continuously growing complexities of cities have brought traffic jams, pollution and the lack of parking space to the daily life of inhabitants. Particularly, the harmful effects of air pollution are very well documented. As the levels of pollutants increase they result into greater health risks. Most interestingly, severe traffic congestion that normally takes place during peak hour times is a key contributor to air pollution. Aiming to decrease levels of health related air pollutants from road transport the OSCAR project focused on the generation of integrated traffic, emission and air pollution models for complex street geometries. Based on recent advancements an optimised expert system has been realised that can serve as a tool for sustainable transport and city management. More specifically, the OSCAR system has been improved to meet user requirements for assessing the impact of road traffic on emissions and air quality. These improvements involve interfaces, connections between modules and accessibility of the database. Having been tested in cities of project participants it was found that results were in accordance with measured data. The OSCAR system is a highly sophisticated tool that can be used under congested conditions for screening purposes; being either simple or complex depending on input data. The system can be used by various local authorities and traffic management organisations as an integrated assessment tool for road traffic in urban areas.
