Measuring Urban Bicyclists' Uptake of Traffic-Related Pollution

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Summary: Urban bicyclists’ uptake of traffic-related air pollution is still not well quantified, due to a lack of direct measurements of uptake and a lack of analysis of the variation in uptake. This paper describes and establishes the feasibility of a novel method for measuring bicyclists’ uptake of volatile organic compounds (VOC) by sampling breath concentrations. Early results from the data set demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to generate findings for transportation analysis, with statistically significant exposure and uptake differences from bicycling on arterial versus bikeway facilities for several traffic-related VOC. These results provide the first empirical evidence that the usage of bikeways (or greenways) by bicyclists within an urban environment can significantly reduce uptake of dangerous traffic-related gas pollutants. Dynamic concentration and respiration data reveal unfavorable correlations from a health impacts perspective, where bicyclists’ respiration and travel time are greater at higher-concentration locations on already high-concentration roadways (arterials).

Bio: Alex Bigazzi is a Ph.D. candidate in Transportation Engineering at PSU, where he is also teaching a class on transportation emissions modeling....

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Upsides of the current economic downturn: Changes in vehicle fuel economy, amount of driving, vehicle emissions, and road fatalities

ITS Lab (Engineeering 315)

Abstract: Despite the never-ending cascade of depressing economic developments recently, there are some encouraging new trends to be discovered. Some of these trends relate to the vehicles we buy and how we drive them, and the consequences of these actions. In this presentation, I will discuss several new findings about the positive influences of the recent economic changes on (1) the fuel efficiency of purchased new vehicles, (2) the amount and type of driving that we do, (3) how much carbon dioxide emissions we produce from driving, and (4) the number of road fatalities.

Bio: Dr. Michael Sivak is a Research Professor and the Head of the Human Factors Division of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). He received his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Michigan. Dr. Sivak's primary expertise is in perceptual and cognitive aspects of driving. Examples of his recent research topics include human-factors aspects of vehicle design, bounded rationality and driver behavior, and the relative risks of flying and driving. In 2001, he was named a Distinguished Research Scientist by the University of Michigan. In 2006, he received the A.R. Lauer Award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society for outstanding contributions to human aspects of the broad area of safety.

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