VERA aims at the development, optimisation and demonstration of retrofit technologies and systems to reduce both tailpipe and brake particle emissions, covering a wide range of applications from road vehicles to metros and trains.
The motivation behind this work lies in a number of facts:
- Average vehicle age in the EU is increasing, for both light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles
- There are still certain types of road vehicles that are not equipped with a particulate filter, although that they can emit high numbers of particles under real driving conditions
- The recently introduced Euro 7 regulation includes, for the first time, limits for the particle emissions from brakes.
- Recent studies, as well as future projections, indicate that the contribution of brake emissions to total particle emissions from vehicles is constantly increasing, since modern vehicles are equipped with state-of-the-art systems minimizing exhaust particles.
- PM concentration in metro networks is significantly higher as compared to the ambient outdoor air, with one of the main sources being brake particles. Braking events produce fine and ultrafine particles containing hazardous metals that pose health risks.
- Air quality in closed and confined environment, such as underground metro stations and bus terminals, is strongly influenced by the particle emissions of metro and buses.
- Urban air quality is strongly influenced by the environmental behavior of vehicles running high mileages in the city center (taxis, delivery vans, buses). Improved urban air quality is critical for human health, particularly when considering that European union is highly urbanized with 75% of its population living in cities and urban centers.
All the above suggest that existing fleets of road vehicles and metros/trains need to become cleaner and reduce their impact on air quality. In this direction, the overall goal of VERA is to provide technological solutions for the improvement of the environmental character of road vehicles and metros/trains, particularly focusing on the reduction of particle emissions, by:
- Developing and optimising innovative retrofit solutions for tailpipe emissions of road vehicles, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of existing retrofit systems in order to assess the market gaps and define precisely the requirements of new systems.
- Optimising an existing and developing new innovative retrofit solutions for brake particles of road vehicles, targeting to maximum emissions reduction through their combination. The solutions include innovative materials as well as a filtration system.
- Implementing and optimising a retrofit solution for brake particles of metro vehicles, including systems for different braking technologies.
- Running cost-benefit analyses for the developed retrofit solutions, accounting for the health effects of particle emissions before and after the retrofitting and considering different scenarios of implementation supported by regulatory and incentive schemes to promote retrofitting.
