Environmental Strategies for Selecting Eco-Routing in a Small City
1
Betancourt Research Group, Universidad de Extremadura, 10003 Caceres, Spain
2
Transport Research Centre, TRANSyT, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Atmosphere 2019, 10(8), 448; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10080448
Received: 27 June 2019
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Revised: 29 July 2019
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Accepted: 2 August 2019
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Published: 4 August 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Transport Emissions and the Atmosphere)
This research aims to find the most ecological itineraries for urban mobility in a small city (eco-routes), where distances are rather short, but car dependence is really high. A real life citywide survey was carried out in the city of Caceres (Spain) with almost 100,000 inhabitants. Research was done on alternating routes, traffic, times of day, and weather conditions. The output of the study was to assess fuel consumption, CO2, and regulated pollutant emissions for different type of vehicles, routes, and drivers. The results show that in the case studied, urban roads had fewer emissions (CO2 and pollutants) but there was an increase in the population affected by pollutants. On the contrary, bypasses reduced travel time and congestion but increased fuel consumption and emissions. Traffic conditions had a greater influence on fuel consumption in petrol vehicles than diesel ones. Therefore, there must be a balanced distribution of traffic in order to minimize congestion, and at the same time to reduce emissions and the number of people affected by harmful pollution levels. There should be a combination of regulatory measures in traffic policies in order to achieve that balance by controlling access to city centres, limiting parking spaces, pedestrianization, and lowering traffic speeds in sensitive areas.
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Keywords:
eco-routing; fuel consumption; emissions; climate change; road type; driving behaviour
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MDPI and ACS Style
Coloma, J.F.; García, M.; Wang, Y.; Monzón, A. Environmental Strategies for Selecting Eco-Routing in a Small City. Atmosphere 2019, 10, 448. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10080448
AMA Style
Coloma JF, García M, Wang Y, Monzón A. Environmental Strategies for Selecting Eco-Routing in a Small City. Atmosphere. 2019; 10(8):448. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10080448
Chicago/Turabian StyleColoma, Juan F., Marta García, Yang Wang, and Andrés Monzón. 2019. "Environmental Strategies for Selecting Eco-Routing in a Small City" Atmosphere 10, no. 8: 448. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10080448
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