Abstract
KEYWORDS
air pollution, engine pollutants, traffic fluency, traffic lights, voluntary engine stopping.
ABSTRACT
The paper intends to determine the contribution of displayed timing traffic lights and voluntary engine stopping during the vehicle stopping at lighted crossings to the air pollution abatement in Romanian cities. In several cities from the fourteen Romanian urban agglomerations ( cities over 250 000 inhabitants according to EC Directive 96-62 regarding air quality) including Brasov and Constanta city, there were installed displayed timing traffic lights. These traffic lights have an adjustable waiting time under the rule of „green wave” and are correlated with the condition of maintaining the average speed constant between two crossings, ensuring the traffic fluency better than fixed timing traffic lights. The project worked on road infrastructure and traffic condition specific to Romanian urban cities being sustained by research activities undertaken in the partnership between research engineers from “Ovidius” University Constanta and “ Transylvania” University Brasov. The work has two main objectives: Determination of air pollution abatement produced by road vehicles at crossings by means of phase optimization according to urban traffic parameters; Determination of air pollution abatement produced by road vehicles at crossings by means of voluntary engine stopping for traffic light timings longer than 20 seconds.
The main activities within the work were as follows:
1. Determination of a representative urban route for traffic conditions in Constanta city ;
2. Determination using statistical calculations of the fuel economy and air pollutant reduction for the application of voluntary engine stopping at the crossings ( CO, CmHn, NOx, particulates, CO2 ).