Abstract: The near-road traffic-related coverages of air pollutants have been recently identified as a major threat due to corroboration associating effusion from roadway traffic to adverse health effects. In this paper a basic microscale simulation model has been derived and analyzed to calculate short-term (hourly) near-road carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations from heterogeneous traffic usually observed on Indian roads. The sensitivity analysis and a case study is used to underline problems in estimating near-road CO pollutant effects. Procedure-based simulation models based on mathematically proficient simplified-type response surface methodology and minimum inputs variables combine the main factors of air pollution exposures: vehicle emissions and traffic flow, meteorology, and receptor point. We select the most significant parameters and then develop an assembly of multiplicative type-models that simulate the predicted CO values from “source” model CALINE4. The combined model is implemented to a case study in the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi area. It forecasts CO concentrations at the sampling station beside a roadway. We examine the spatial profiles of CO concentration estimations. The forecasted CO concentrations exhibited rational similitude with hourly measurements at 10 m receptor distance, like, the mean error, mean absolute error, NMSE, RMSE, FB and MG value between monitored CO concentrations and predicted CO concentrations from simplified model are found to be 0.466, 0.686, 0.384, 1.172, -0.06 and 0.937. This shows that modelled value reasonably matched the observed concentrations. The simplified-type model is proposed for epidemiological and risk analysis, exposure assessment, geographical information systems (GIS) and other uses.
Keywords: Microscale simulation model, heterogeneous traffic, near-road air pollution, carbon monoxide, sensitivity analysis, CALINE4, multiplicative type models, epidemiological studies
