
Article
Air Quality Improvement in Urban Street Canyons: An Assessment of the Effects of Selected Traffic Management Strategies Using OSPM Model
Applied Sciences
(2023)
Abstract
Constantly changing vehicle stock, modification of road infrastructure, and other conditions result in a need to update the knowledge on the effectiveness of individual traffic management strategies, which could form the basis for actions taken by local authorities to improve air quality in crowded city centers, especially in street canyons. The article presents research results that evaluate the theoretical effects of introducing select traffic reorganization scenarios in the example of four street canyons located in Krakow (Poland) that are different in terms of vehicle traffic volume and canyon geometry. These scenarios were based on a reduction in the average traffic speed, road capacity or the admission of cars meeting certain exhaust emission standards. The authors estimated changes in emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2 and total NOx) and particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) as well as investigated the effect of these changes on air quality in the canyons using the Operational Street Pollution Model (OSPM). Significant effects in terms of improving air quality were identified only in scenarios based on a significant reduction in traffic volume and the elimination of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles with internal combustion engines that did not meet the requirements of the Euro 4, Euro 5 or Euro 6 emission standards. For these scenarios, depending on the variant and canyon analyzed, the emission reduction was achieved at a level of approximately 36–66% for NO, 28–77% for NO2, 35–67% for NOx and 44–78% for both PM10 and PM2.5. The expected effect of improving air quality in individual street canyons for these substances was 15–44%, 5–14%, 11–36% and 3–14%, respectively. The differences obtained in the percentage reduction of emissions and pollutant concentrations in the air were the result of a relatively high background of pollutants that suppress the achieved effect of improving air quality to a large extent.
Keywords
- urban areas,
- road transport,
- street canyon,
- traffic-related emissions,
- air pollution,
- air quality modeling,
- OSPM
Disciplines
Publication Date
May 24, 2023
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/app13116431
Publisher Statement
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Submitted for possible open access publication under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Citation Information
Robert Oleniacz, Marek Bogacki, Mateusz Rzeszutek and Paulina Bździuch. "Air Quality Improvement in Urban Street Canyons: An Assessment of the Effects of Selected Traffic Management Strategies Using OSPM Model" Applied Sciences Vol. 13 Iss. 11 (2023) p. 6431 ISSN: 2076-3417 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/robert_oleniacz/164/
Creative Commons license

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY International License.