Modeling excess carbon dioxide emissions from traffic congestion in urban areas

Abstract

Transportation contributes to the large amount of greenhouse gas emissions, especially for CO2. Urban planning, transportation operation, and energy use definitely affect the amount of CO2 emitted in an urban area. It would be very meaningful to quickly quantify the possible change of CO2 with different planning scenarios. This paper examines and forecasts the yearly change of CO2 emissions from traffic congestion by developing a quick response model based on a fuzzy table look-up scheme, linking the model to real-world data on city patterns and traffic conditions from 2012 Annual Urban Mobility Report by Texas Transportation Institute and United States Census Bureau. With a case study of Austin, Texas, to cap CO2 emissions from congestion at 2.61% growth per year, there is a need to keep the population-weighted density unchanged, VMT annual growth rate capped at 2.32%, and annual excess fuel consumption growth rate capped at –1.60%.