Greenhouse Gas Emission Scenarios and Vehicle Engine Performance in a Main Urban Road in Northwestern Mexico

Abstract

Transport is one of the sectors with the highest greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) that is imperative to reduce in order to decrease global warming. Although modern vehicles and arterial roads have adopted technological and structural improvements to enhance fuel use efficiency, the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere by the transport sector has been increasing in different Mexican cities. In generating mitigation strategies, modeling scenarios of decreased equivalent carbon dioxide, CO2e emissions, may be useful as an evaluation tool. In this study, the aim was to model a trend scenario and a scenario, including improvements with a projection to the year 2039 on one of the main urban roads of the border city of Mexicali, Mexico. In order to create a dynamic emission model of GHG, including emission factors, the main variables for the simulation were vehicle volume, travels, motor performance, and fuel consumption. These last two parameters were the most important for vehicular emissions estimations and for the projection of them in this period. As a result of the projections, CO2e was observed to increase in a trend scenario, while modeled improvement actions resulted in emission reductions of up to 5%. The model showed that the key variable to achieve this reduction is vehicle engine performance (Pf), whose increase factor was 1.1% per year. Replicating this methodology to evaluate and mitigate the GHG emissions on different city roads or in other cities, can be a contribution for the urban designers, authorities, and involved institutions.