Seasonal and Long-Term Trend of on-Road Gasoline and Diesel Vehicle Emission Factors Measured in Traffic Tunnels

Abstract

Emissions of gaseous and particulate pollutants from on-road gasoline and diesel vehicles were measured in a traffic tunnel under real-world driving conditions. Emission factors were attributed to gasoline and diesel vehicles using linear regression against the fraction of fuel consumed by diesel vehicles (% fuelD). We measured 67% higher NOx emissions from gasoline vehicles in winter than in spring (2 versus 1.2 g NO2 kg fuel−1). Emissions of CO, NOx, and particulate matter from diesel vehicles all showed impacts of recent policy changes to reduce emissions from this source. Comparison of our measurements to those of a previous study ~10 years prior in a nearby traffic tunnel on the same highway showed that emission factors for both gasoline and diesel vehicles have fallen by 50–70%. To further confirm this long-term trend, we summarized emission factors measured in previous tunnel studies in the U.S. since the 1990s. More restrictive emission standards are effective at reducing emissions from both diesel and gasoline vehicles, and decreases in observed emissions can be mapped to specific vehicle control policies. The trend of diesel-to-gasoline emission factor ratios revealed changes in the relative importance of vehicle types, though fuel-specific emission factors of NOx and elemental carbon (EC) are still substantially larger (~5–10 times) for diesel vehicles than gasoline vehicles.