Abstract
The continuous growth of transport demand of goods and people, the congestion, the pollution, particularly in urban areas, are issues related to safety and quality of life. Freight transport in urban areas shows a worrying rise. The significant transformations produced in the last period in the structure and intensity of freight transport, driven by technological and social changes have consequences on the environment quality and urban traffic management. In recent years, the air quality is a major problem associated with emissions from transport activity, the reducing of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from road vehicles being the main concern about sustainable development in road transport. Given the increasing demand for freight transport in urban areas and hence the proportion of light duty vehicles in the structure of urban traffic flows and also the efforts regarding the sustainable development of road transport by reducing pollutant emissions associated with this mode of transport, this paper aims to highlight a model for determining the optimum average traveling speed for light duty vehicles, while minimizing the air pollution associated with the main emission factors (CO, HC, NOx) and with the fuel consumption. Following the realized application based on data published by the European Environment Agency, it was revealed that the optimum average traveling speed of light duty vehicles in cruise regime, in terms of air quality is 65.3 km/h. Under the same assumptions, minimum fuel consumption is obtained for an average traveling speed of 63 km/h.
Keywords: Air Pollution, Road Traffic, Driving Condition, Average Speed, Fuel Consumption