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Environmental Research Group

Modelling » Road traffic emissions

Photos from the Modelling TeamFeatures of an advanced emissions inventory

The modelling team has a wealth of experience in developing emissions inventories that can provide the answers to complex air pollution problems.

The London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) is an excellent example of the application of one such inventory.

Adode PDF icon Download the Urban Emissions leaflet (1.9Mb)

Capabilities:

  • The LAEI provides, for the first time, an emissions inventory that reflects the geography of the roads in London. This enables the accurate assessment of population exposure and health impacts as well as providing compatibility with other map products commonly used within GIS systems.
  • The LAEI road network represents an improvement in network accuracy over traffic models and balances the need to correctly represent road networks whilst limiting the size of the datasets required for processing. This has resulted in the highest level of network detail with no loss of accuracy compared with OS road networks.
  • Additionally other key developments have sought to improve the LAEI. These include the separate assessment of public and other important transport sectors, for example, London Taxi and London Transport Bus use.


Yearly projected emissions (tonnes per annum) of primary NO2 in London

NO2:NOx Emissions ratio in 2002

Other features of the LAEI:
  • Vehicle speed and vehicle flow are provided separately on each road link.
  • Traffic model interfaces are used to obtain present and future year traffic estimates. Interfaces are also used to access Moving Car Observer (MCO) traffic speed data, manual count data and automatic count data.
  • Detailed calculations of minor road vehicle km and emissions estimates.
  • The LAEI is the first inventory to make predictions of primary NO2 emissions.
  • Advanced data gathering techniques, such as GPS vehicle tracking and automatic number plate recognition data are being used to enhance vehicle activity and vehicle stock information. Recent developments incorporate on-road vehicle stock into the emissions inventory using ANPR measurements.


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