Assessment of Air Quality Impacts from the Deployment of an Intelligent Transport System in Balkan Cities

Abstract

In line with the requirements of the European Commission’s Transport White Paper 2011 (Roadmap to a Competitive and Resource Efficient Transport), an original Interoperable Open Architecture System for urban transport management and environmental impact assessment was developed in the frame of the Step2Smart INTERREG project. The system relies on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) application to associate city transport management with the reduction of atmospheric pollutant concentrations. The pilot ITS application in the city of Nicosia, Cyprus takes advantage of an advanced Air Quality Management System (AQMS) based on the MEMO/MARS-aero modeling system, used by the city authorities for the operational assessment of air quality. Real-time measurements of the main atmospheric pollutants and traffic data are collected from monitoring sensors at two locations in Nicosia, one at the street level and one as an urban background station, in order to quantify traffic contribution in air pollution levels. A new module is incorporated into the AQMS for the on-line assimilation of traffic and air quality measurement data. The monitoring data are then incorporated in air quality model simulations combined with a database of current and future emission scenarios, for rapidly assessing potential traffic management strategies. Pilot actions in Nicosia are coordinated with parallel deployments in the Greek island cities of Chania and Kos, which will be interconnected in the Interoperable Open Architecture System, providing a complete traffic picture of the three cities and will quantify traffic impact on air pollution along major road axes, as well as at the urban scale.

Question and Answer

Questioner: Rostislav Kouzmetsov.

Question: How do you handle VOC composition from CAMS boundaries?

Answer: The operational dispersion model is not particularly sensitive on the exact NMVOC split used for the boundary conditions. As an adequate approximation, the same system of split factors has been used as previous applied for the emissions disaggregation. The split is based on the EDGAR data assuming the SNAP sector distribution of the Cypriot emissions inventory.