An On-Road Motor Vehicle Emissions Inventory for Denver: An Efficient Alternative to Modeling

Publication Date

10-17-2002

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Natural Science and Mathematics, Chemistry and Biochemistry

Keywords

Atmospheric chemistry, Emissions, Pollutants

Abstract

Emission inventories from mobile sources have traditionally been obtained through computational modeling. This method, however, has intrinsic shortcomings in that the factors used incorporate only a limited amount of real-world observations. The agreement between model predictions and measurements has often been poor. Recently, a fuel-based method of obtaining on-road emissions inventories has been developed. This technique calculates emission factors in grams of pollutant per unit of fuel used (kg, gallons or l) from remote sensing measurements. Combining these factors with fuel use data, available from tax records, results in a fuel-based emission inventory. This method for obtaining emission inventories is very economical and an ideal alternative for locations lacking the resources to develop an emissions model. We have used this routine to calculate CO, HC and NO on-road running exhaust emissions inventories for the Denver Metropolitan area during several years when the enhanced I/M program has been in place. These calculations indicate a continually decreasing inventory over the 6 yr study period. The calculations are also compared with results from the recent MOBILE6 model. The modeled inventories are 30–70% higher, 40% lower, and 40–80% higher for CO, HC and NO, respectively.

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Copyright Date

10-17-2002

Rights Holder

Elsevier Science Ltd.

Provenance

Received from author

Language

English (eng)

Extent

8 pgs

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by Elsevier Science Ltd. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Publication Title

Atmospheric Environment

Volume

36

Issue

33

First Page

5177

Last Page

5184

ISSN

1878-2442

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