Development and Applications of an Emissions Micro-Simulation Tool for Transportation Infrastructure Design

Abstract

Transportation emissions constitute a significant portion of overall emissions inventories, and contribute to air quality health concerns. Reductions in transportation emissions can be achieved through efficient design of infrastructure, effective policy and regulation, and informed planning decisions. However, current transportation emissions models cannot accomplish all of these goals efficiently, and as a result such reduction opportunities are missed. This work presents a transportation micro-simulation tool that resolves emissions at the link level and efficiently models the effects of traffic congestion, traffic shifting, and mode shifting. This tool can be used for iterative design studies using conventional computing hardware. The model is described in detail, and a confidence assessment tests the model credibility. Several application studies illustrate the usefulness of the approach, and a comparison to an interaction-based micro-simulation demonstrates the efficiency and limitations of the approach.