Modeling for vehicular pollution in urban region; A review

Air pollution is one of the major threats to environment in the present time. Increase in degree of urbanization is a major cause of this air pollution. Due to urbanization, vehicular activities are continuously increasing at a tremendous rate. Mobile or vehicular pollution is predominantly degrading the air quality worldwide. Thus, air quality management is necessary for dealing with this severe problem. The first step to deal with this air pollution problem is to find out the existing concentration of air pollutants in the atmosphere due to vehicular activities. It is not possible to establish ambient air monitoring stations everywhere, especially in developing countries as it is a costly process. Hence, vehicular air quality models are used to predict the concentration of different pollutants in the atmosphere. This review covers the simulation of vehicular emission by different types of models for estimating the pollutant concentration in ambient air from vehicular emissions. The models predict concentrations of pollutants in time and space and relate it to the dependent variables. These can also be used to predict the concentration of pollutants in the future. These models can be useful for imposing regulations by governments and to test techniques for controlling pollutant emissions. This review also discusses where and how the respective models can be used.