An Integrated Model for the Estimation of the Emissions of Pollutants from Traffic in the Urban Area

The vehicular traffic still remains one of the main causes of air pollution, despite the progressive improvement, particularly in the urban areas. For this reason, several municipal administrations are forced to impose limitations and restrictions on the circulation of vehicles, especially the most polluting ones. The paper proposes some specific emission models for CO, NOx and PM pollutants, per vehicle unit, derived from the composition of some literature models and capable of responding to the planning requirements for different road and traffic contexts. These tools appear interesting in relation to the need to verify the non-exceeding of the environmental capacity limits on the individual streets and on the global road network of a city. Finally, a representative application of the simulation approach and the resulting model assessment are proposed on an Italian urban network case study.