Modelling transportation policies and their environmental impacts

Emission reduction strategies are gaining attention as planning agencies work towards adherence to air quality conformity standards. Policymakers struggling to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) must grapple with a growing number of travel demand policies. To consider any of these emerging demand mechanisms as a viable option to meet emission targets, planners and policymakers need tools to better understand the implications of such policies on travel behavior.

Researchers in this project developed an integrated multimodal travel demand and emission model to determine the destination, mode and route choice of the users in response to a particular transportation policy. The emission model provides GHG (NOx, VOC, and CO2) estimates at a very detailed level in the transportation network.