Managing Traffic Flows for Cleaner Cities: The Role of Green Navigation Systems

Fiamma Perez-Prada, Andres Monzon and Cristina Valdes
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Fiamma Perez-Prada: Transport Research Centre (TRANSyT), Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Andres Monzon: Transport-Civil Eng. Department, Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Cristina Valdes: Empresa Municipal de Transportes de Madrid, 28007 Madrid, Spain

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: Cities worldwide suffer from serious air pollution problems and are main contributors to climate change. Green Navigation systems have a great potential to reduce fuel consumption and exhaust emissions from traffic. This research evaluates the impacts of different percentages of green drivers on traffic, CO 2 , and NO x over the entire Madrid Region. A macroscopic traffic model was combined with an enhanced macroscopic emissions model and a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to simulate emissions on the basis of average vehicle speeds and traffic intensity at the link level. NO x emissions are evaluated, taking into account not only the exhaust emissions produced by transport activity, but also the amount of the population exposed to these air pollutants. Results show up to 10.4% CO 2 and 13.8% NO x reductions in congested traffic conditions for a 90% penetration of green drivers; however, the population’s exposure to NO x increases up to 20.2%. Moreover, while traffic volumes decrease by 13.5% for the entire region, they increase by up to 16.4% downtown. Travel times also increase by 28.7%. Since green drivers tend to choose shorter routes through downtown areas, eco-routing systems are an effective tool for fighting climate change, but are ineffective to reduce air pollution in dense urban areas.

Keywords: eco-routing; green navigation; traffic emissions; climate change; air pollution; co-benefits; trade-offs; ICT; CO 2; NO x (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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