Impact of transport sustainability on air quality in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Transport sustainability has direct association with improvement of urban emissions levels. Different sustainable steps like promotion of public transport, walking or the use of bicycles, reduction in the number of personal cars and improvement in speed (up to 50 km/h), fuel and model of vehicles can decrease emissions levels in the cities. In this study, emission factors of seven different vehicles have been calculated using the OSPM software. An estimated decrease of 7% in NOx emission, 33% in CO emission and 25.8% in benzene emission has been observed with 10% reduction in the number of cars and 10 km/h gain in speed (from 40 to 50 km/h). It has also been observed that 2005 model buses using 1999 level fuel emit 1.3 times less benzene, NOx and CO emissions compared to 2000 model buses using the quality of fuel, which was available in 1990 in Europe.