Citation

Luo J, Boriboonsomsin K, Barth M. J. Transp. Health 2018; 10: 111-123.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jth.2018.06.008

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Pedestrians often face risks of inhaling a high amount of traffic-related air pollution due to their proximity to the emission sources and increased breathing rates during walking. This paper presents an innovative way for pedestrians to mitigate such risks. Specifically, a method for incorporating the estimated inhaled mass of fine particles (PM2.5) into walking route calculations was developed, and the calculated low air pollution inhalation route was compared against the traditional shortest duration route. For the case study of a suburban road network in Riverside, California, a low inhalation route could be found for 4% of the simulated walking trips in both morning and afternoon periods. In the morning period, the low inhalation routes would reduce a pedestrian's inhalation of traffic-related primary PM2.5 by 48% while increasing the walking duration by only 2% on average. Similarly, in the afternoon period, the low inhalation routes would reduce the inhalation by 44% while increasing the walking duration by merely 1% on average. These results indicate that if people who choose to walk can accommodate a slight increase in walking duration in some of their walking trips, they can substantially reduce the inhalation of traffic-related primary PM2.5 on those trips. The presented concept of low air pollution inhalation route can be enhanced by the integration of real-time traffic, weather, and even roadside air quality data to result in navigation applications for pedestrians. This may be particularly important for sensitive population groups such as school-aged children and seniors.

Language: en

Keywords

Air pollution; Exposure; Pedestrians; routing; Traffic emissions