Connected Emission Control Technologies for Freight Vehicles

This project explores how connected vehicle technology can be used to
reduce the impacts of air pollutant emissions from freight vehicles.
Specifically, the objective of this project is to develop new vehicle
routing algorithms for determining travel routes for heavy-duty diesel
trucks that would reduce the exposure of local residents to air pollutant
emissions from these trucks. The core of the methodology is to first
estimate the total amount of human exposure to pollutant emissions
generated by a truck when that truck travels on a particular road
segment.  Once this is performed for all road segments, the
estimated exposure value can be used in a least cost path algorithm to
find a travel route that would minimize the total exposure value for the
trip. To evaluate the potential benefits of this air pollution mitigation
strategy, simulation-based experiments were carried out using the
Reseda-Northridge area of Southern California as a case study. Overall, it
was found that as compared to the fastest route, the low exposure route
could result in more than 30% reduction in total air pollutant exposure
for about 40% of the 400 simulated trips while keeping the increase in
trip travel time to no more than 10%.