Coupling traffic originated urban air pollution estimation with an atmospheric chemistry model

Due to increasing issues of air pollution in urban areas continuous research is being conducted to upgrade models, which can predict the distribution of pollutants and thus enable timely interventions to mitigate their negative effects. To support these efforts, traffic data from an integrated transport model was used to drive the COPERT traffic emission model and the WRF-Chem atmospheric chemistry model. With reliable macroscopic traffic data from the Budapest region, traffic state estimations were calculated for every fifteen minutes of the day using dynamic assignment with predefined and time-varying static demand matrices. Then the COPERT vehicular emission model of average speeds was applied to provide the emission factors, so that the macroscopic emissions for the traffic network could be calculated. As a next step the WRF-Chem online coupled weather and atmospheric chemistry model was adapted to estimate atmospheric dispersion of pollutants (CO, NOx, O3). The coupled models are presented in a 2-day case study with qualitative comparison of obtained results with measurements. As a result, it can be stated that combining macroscopic road traffic modeling with atmospheric models can enhance the estimation efficiency of urban air pollution. •A coupling of traffic and atmospheric models is presented with a case study for Budapest.•Traffic simulation explores the urban road emission inventory in detail.•Atmospheric chemistry model explains the diurnal change of NOx and O3 levels.•The two-peak diurnal pattern of NOx concentration does not directly follow the traffic density.