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Analysing Sustainable Transportation Strategies

Vehicle emissions

  • Project Team:
    • Project Leader: Prof. Margaret O’Mahony
    • Research Fellow: Xiaoqing (Cissy) Li

  • Description:
    • Sustainable transportation strategies and policies not only generate an efficient and equitable transportation system but also balance other economic, social and environmental objectives. The objective of this project is to carry out a comprehensive equilibrium analysis of most widely applied transportation polices and strategies from the viewpoint of sustainability, mainly concentrating on their impact on vehicular emissions. This study adopts the two best known and most widely used macroscopic emission estimation models belonging to the category of average-speed models. These are the Mobile Source Emissions Factor Model or MOBILE and the TRANSYT-7F model. The evaluated transportation strategies and policies include road pricing, road network design, traveller information provision services, and speed limit control. Traffic assignment is simulated by employing different traffic assignment techniques, which consist of deterministic user equilibrium (DUE), stochastic user equilibrium (SUE), system optimum (SO), and system equity (SE). The impact of those strategies on travellers’ route choice behaviour under different equilibriums is examined. The consequent impact on vehicular emissions is also analysed.

      The goal of this project is to present analytical models, approaches, and analyses incorporating economic, social, and environmental aspects, which allow transportation policymakers and planners to evaluate sustainability of various transportation strategies at a strategic level. The proposed models will provide a useful methodology which will enable transportation policymakers to balance the trade-offs amongst different priorities from economic, social, and environmental perspectives. The conclusions drawn from the results could help policymakers to identify optimal sustainable transportation strategies and policies, which can simultaneously reduce negative impact of transportation and avoid conflicting objectives.