Innovative assessment tool for urban air quality
Urban traffic plays a key role in environmental sustainability and citizens' life quality. This is due to journey times, air pollution, health deterioration of high-risk groups and industrial profit loss. Advanced vehicle technologies have made considerable progress towards decreasing these factors; however, compliance with the EU Air Quality directives needs further optimisation. Therefore, systematic studies are performed to assess the impact of pollutants such as NOx and particulate matter (PM) that are up to 10 or 2.5micrometers in size. All available measurement methods use the assumption that traffic flow is smooth, a condition apparently not applicable in large cities. OSCAR partners first introduced pollution models that take into account complex street geometries with hourly resolution. This was accomplished with an optimised Expert System for end-users that identifies the optimum sustainable transport strategy and assesses the environmental impact of road traffic. The procedure that followed involved the elucidation of road traffic patterns, and emissions and air pollution levels in four European cities: Athens, Helsinki, London and Madrid. The requirements of the end users were identified according to the assessment system and agreed protocols were prepared. A specific look at Helsinki showed that high resolution air quality meteorology and traffic measurements obtained from existing networks were complemented with data for OSCAR. Temporal resolution data were collected hourly at different air quality, meteorology and traffic sites. An analysis of the accumulated data followed to determine spatial and temporal trends in terms of meteorology and traffic flows. The model employed was evaluated and comparison studies of the aforesaid flows of EU urban areas were performed. Results revealed that the generated model would be most beneficial for predicting pollution levels and identifying impact reduction options that meet the requirements of individual cities. Planning of pollution strategies is also facilitated with further potential to be implemented in the EU directives for air and life quality.
