Pems-based Approach to Developing and Evaluating Driving Cycles for Air Quality Assessment

A driving cycle is the fundamental concept in conducting emission testing and modeling. The quality of a driving cycle is directly associated with the accuracy of any air quality analysis, and therefore whether the emission reductions can be achieved. However, the widely used driving cycles bring considerable uncertainties when the emission estimation is carried out for a specific city or region. Further, the existing driving cycles have been developed based only on the driving activities, without capturing the characteristics of emission profiles. In this context, this research is intended to achieve two primary objectives. The first objective is to develop driving cycles for classified roads incorporating both a vehicle’s driving activities and its emission characteristics, using the data collected by Portable Emission Measurement System (PEMS), which was neither available nor has ever been used in developing driving cycles. A comprehensive database is established for the collected data and a sophisticated computer program is developed to generate the specific driving cycles. The second objective is to develop an evaluation approach of driving cycles in which Vehicle Specific Power (VSP), a parameter that can readily connect the driving modes with emissions, is used to evaluate how well the driving cycles can represent the driving and emission characteristics on real roads. The proposed methodology for generating driving cycles is then evaluated for its effectiveness on the emission estimation based on a comparative analysis with the current emission inventory and traditional methodologies.