The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of lowering speed limit on an urban transportation network. A microscopic traffic simulation model, Vissim was utilized to measure the impact. Also, various traffic inputs were tested with different signal coordination scenarios to investigate the impact in different traffic conditions. It was found that during early morning hours with very light traffic, the impact of lowering speed limit was significant. During congested time periods, including level of service E and F, the travel speed reduction from lowering speed limit was not significant. As suggested in other studies, the results demonstrated that lowering the speed limit does not have a significant impact on average travel speed in congested traffic networks. Also, different signal coordination was tested. As expected, signal coordination based on the lowered speed limit performed better than the case with signal coordination based on the previous higher speed limit. The results of this study are expected to provide insights when considering lowering speed limit for existing traffic networks.

To monitor air pollution on roads in urban areas, it is necessary to accurately estimate emissions from vehicles. For this purpose, vehicle emission estimation models have been developed. Vehicle emission estimation models are categorized into macroscopic models and microscopic models. While the calculation is simple, macroscopic models utilize the average speed of vehicles without accounting for the acceleration and deceleration of individual vehicles. Therefore, limitations exist in estimating accurate emissions when there are frequent changes in driving behavior. Microscopic emission estimation models overcome these limitations by utilizing the trajectory data of each vehicle. In this method, the total emissions in a road segment are calculated by adding together the emissions from individual vehicles. However, most research studies consider the total vehicle emissions in a road section without considering the difference in vehicle emissions at different locations of a selected road section. In this study, a road segment between two intersections was divided into sub-sections, and energy consumption and emission generation were analyzed. Since there are unique driving behaviors depending on the section of the road segment, energy consumption and emission generation patterns were identified. The findings of this study are expected to provide more detailed and quantitative data for better modeling of energy consumption and emissions in urban areas.