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Air pollution concentration near sensitive urban locations: A missing factor to consider in the grade separation projects

Alvanchi, A ; Sharif University of Technology | 2019

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.04.300
  3. Publisher: Elsevier Ltd , 2019
  4. Abstract:
  5. The high vehicle congestion is the main contributing factor to air pollution originated from the engine's combustion in many urban areas. Grade separation projects have been used to solve this problem and have resulted in overall air pollution reduction in many cases. Many grade separation projects are constructed near sensitive urban locations accommodating susceptible individuals. This research argues that in such cases in addition to the overall air pollution reduction, air pollution concentration near sensitive locations is an influential factor for deciding the appropriate scenario. This research proposes a complementary simulation-based method for assessing the resulting pollution concentration of the new grade separation projects near sensitive locations. In this method, traffic congestion and air pollution of the different available project scenarios were simulated and compared. The recommended scenario was selected as a trade-off between the resulting traffic congestion, the amount of air pollution, and air pollution concentration near sensitive locations. The proposed method was applied to an actual grade separation project in Dezful, Iran using VISSIM and EnViVer traffic and air pollution simulation software packages. It was shown that air pollution concentration near sensitive locations could be reduced by up to 40% with no significant change to the overall air pollution and the average vehicle speed. The achieved results in the case study uphold the pollution concentration near sensitive locations as a possible influential factor in the grade separation projects. The proposed method targets a new aspect of the grade separation projects assessment. As a result of the proposed method implementation, unintentional adverse impacts of air pollution can be avoided on the susceptible groups of citizens. The similar method proposed for the grade separation projects in this project can be adapted for other types of urban transportation projects. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd
  6. Keywords:
  7. Air pollution ; Grade separation ; Traffic congestion ; Computer software ; Economic and social effects ; Location ; Project management ; Separation ; Urban transportation ; Construction management ; Method implementations ; Pollution concentration ; Pollution reduction ; Simulation ; Simulation software package ; Simulation-based method ; Transportation projects
  8. Source: Journal of Cleaner Production ; Volume 228 , 2019 , Pages 824-832 ; 09596526 (ISSN)
  9. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652619313915