VEHICLE EMISSIONS AND PM IN BEIJING, CHINA AND JAKARTA, INDONESIA: TRANSPORTATION AS A SOURCE OF HEALTH, VISIBILITY, AND CLIMATE

Abstract:

We have monitored air quality in Beijing and Jakarta to assess on-road, roadside, and community air quality. Pollutants associated with emissions from nearby and regional traffic sources were seen to be important contributors to particulate matter (PM) levels in community air. In Jakarta the most notable associations were seen between traffic activity and black carbon (BC) and other PM measures; with ultrafine PM and PM 2.5 levels being especially elevated when traffic on nearby roadways was elevated, In Beijing, BC levels showed clear patterns in community air that were associated with unique truck traffic control regulations. On-road monitoring in each city show BC levels are high compared to the results of our studies from a highway with high levels of diesel truck traffic in Los Angeles, California. Emission factors were determined for heavy duty diesel truck traffic in Beijing and were found to be similar to factors estimated for California trucks. Estimates made for light duty vehicles (mostly automobiles) in Beijing showed surprisingly high contributions of BC from these vehicles.
BC levels are linked to several common combustion sources, but in our studies we see that traffic is a clear and probably dominate contributor during warm months. BC is a good surrogate for diesel soot, a pollutant is known to cause human cancer and other health impacts, degrades visibility, and has been shown to represent a potent climate forcing factor. Thus these studies point to the strong co-benefits of controlling on road sources of BC in urban environments