Quantifying on-road vehicle emissions during traffic congestion using updated emission factors of light-duty gasoline vehicles and real-world traffic monitoring big data

Light-duty gasoline vehicles (LDGVs) have made up >90 % of vehicle fleets in China since 2019, moreover, with a high annual growth rate (> 10 %) since 2017. Hence, accurate estimates of air pollutant emissions of these fast-changing LDGVs are vital for air quality management, human healthcare, and ecological protection. However, this issue is poorly quantified due to insufficient reserves of timely updated LDGV emission factors, which are dependent on real-world activity levels. Here we constructed a big dataset of explicit emission profiles (e.g., emission factors and accumulated mileages) for 159,051 LDGVs based on an official I/M database by matching real-time traffic dynamics via real-world traffic monitoring (e.g., traffic volumes and speeds). Consequently, we provide robust evidence that the emission factors of these LDGVs follow a clear heavy-tailed distribution. The top 10 % emitters contributed >60 % to the total fleet emissions, while the bottom 50 % contributed <10 %. Such emission factors were effectively reduced by 75.7–86.2 % as official emission standards upgraded gradually (i.e., from China 2 to China 5) within 13 years from 2004 to 2017. Nevertheless, such achievements would be offset once traffic congestion occurred. In the real world, the typical traffic congestions (i.e., vehicle speed <5 km/h) can lead to emissions 5– 9 times higher than those on non-congested roads (i.e., vehicle speed >50 km/h). These empirical analyses enabled us to propose future traffic scenarios that could harmonize emission standards and traffic congestion. Practical approaches on vehicle emission controls under realistic conditions are proposed, which would provide new insights for future urban vehicle emission management.