IMPORTANCE OF VEHICLES EMISSION INVENTORY FOR ECO·FRIENDL Y ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

According to available literature, air pollution in developing countries accounts for largeamount of excess deaths, very high medical costs and lost productivity every year. Owingto rapidly increasing vehicle numbers and very limited use of emission controltechnologies, motor vehicles are emerging as the largest source of urban air in thedeveloping countries and threatening eco-friendly environments.

Vehicle emission standards, now in effect in all industrialized countries, have beenadopted in many developing countries. Sri Lanka too has adopted emission standards forall vehicles, but those standards are yet to be effectively enforced. Further, there is nomechanism to evaluate the benefits due to emission control strategies as no reliableemission inventory is available, specially to estimate local concentration levels. .

At present estimation of vehicle emission in Sri Lanka is done based on aggregatevehicles types or based on the total fuel sales. A inventory to assess the relativecontribution from different vehicle types and identify emission loads on differentlocalities are essential for planning and assessing of control strategies. A detailed vehicleemission inventory will be helpful to take action to reduce air pollution, noise and otheradverse environments impacts of road transport and create eco friendly environments.

This paper presents a methodology used for preparation of a vehicle emission inventorythat could be used for estimating vehicle emission with respect to special distribution. Itis proposed to modify the transport-planning model, Trans Plan, developed by theUniversity of Moratuwa. This inventory would be developed with provision toaccommodate improved vehicle emission factor for different vehicle types and trafficconditions. This inventory would be capable of estimating emission load due to traffic onany road link categorized as a National road. Provision is available to estimate the hourlyemission load distribution for situations where traffic flow distributions are available.Inventory out put are presented in a GIS platform