Twenty-Year Road Traffic Emissions Trend in Greece

Abstract

Air pollutants emissions from traffic are very closely connected to urban air quality, in a local scale, as well as to global problems like climate change, in a large scale. Road transport air pollutants emissions represent, in most cases, a critical parameter for a comprehensive and successful understanding of the mechanisms governing the air pollutants concentrations. Hence, reliable estimations and comprehension of road transport emissions are indispensable in order to set reliable strategies in the direction of air pollution abatement and management of air pollutants and greenhouse gases emissions. In this framework, in the present work, the emissions of air pollutants from road transport in Greece will be presented for the whole period 1990-2009 as it was found that a detailed, accurate and reliable emissions inventory was missing. The whole period emissions variation has clarified the impact of the change in the vehicle fleet, the engine technologies and the fuel quality. The calculated results have revealed that the age of the vehicles and the corresponding engine technology are the critical parameters determining the amount of the pollutants emitted. This was mainly observed in both passenger cars and heavy duty vehicles demonstrating the importance of a renewal programme of the old circulating vehicles in order to set an effective air pollution abatement strategy. Passenger cars were found to be responsible for the major part of most air pollutants emissions except from nitrogen oxides and particulates emissions. Heavy duty vehicles contribute more than 66% to nitrogen oxides and particulates emissions. For the whole time period, all calculated pollutants present a decreasing trend, with the exception of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide which increase constantly, ranging from −96% for sulphur dioxide to −1% for PM10.

Development of a road transport emission inventory for Greece and the Greater Athens Area: Effects of important parameters

“…Large discrepancies exist between Markakis et al (2010) results and the EMEP database for national emissions in 2003 (Table 9). National emissions calculated by Progiou and Ziomas (2012) are higher by 100.845 ktn for CO, 33.263 ktn for NOx and 7.251 ktn for NMVOC from this study. Concerning the emissions for the Attica region they seem to be comparable to this study for CO (except for Markakis et al, 2010 but emissions are calculated for 2003) while for NOx and NMVOC the difference is 22% and 51% respectively between Aleksandropoulou et al (2011) and this study.…”

“…The spatial resolution was increased based on the allocation of emissions from several sources, the land use and population density data. Since an accurate and reliable emission inventory was missing, Progiou and Ziomas (2012) presented a twentyyear road traffic emission trend for Greece. In this work, annual emissions of air pollutants from road transport in Greece were calculated for the period 1990-2009 without being further temporally and spatially analysed.…”

Energy, Transportation and Global Warming

“…Compared to national and European inventories, as well as to other studies (Progiou and Ziomas 2012), this paper focuses solely on road transport. Apart from daily GHG emissions values, the paper tries to identify the road sections that produce the majority of emissions (hot-spots).…”

Poluição do ar sob a perspectiva urbana: comparando estratégias implementadas de controle de emissão veicular e mobilidade em São Paulo, Nova Iorque e Paris

“…Indeed, in 1990 the world included 10 cities greater than 10 million inhabitants, which represented 7% percent of the world's global population. In the last twenty-four years, the number of mega cities, cities with over 10 million inhabitants, has jumped to 28 (UN, 2014), and as cities concentrate the world's greatest share of exposed people, they face the challenge of coping with one of the major circumstances that aggravates the effects of air pollution: traffic density and people's exposure (PITT et al, 2006;PROGIOU et al, ZIOMAS, 2012). Indeed, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that injuries and air pollution from road transport have caused 1.5 million deaths globally and are a greater source of death than HIV/AIDS, malaria and diabetes combined.…”