Recent Validation Efforts for a Comprehensive Modal Emissions Model

Abstract

Mobile source emissions estimation techniques play a critical role for regional planning and development of emission control strategies. The primary models for mobile source emissions estimation have been the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s MOBILE model and the California Air Resources Board’s EMFAC model. These models work well for large regional areas but are not as well suited for “microscale” evaluation. Over the last several years, the College of Engineering–Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) has been evaluating in-use, light-duty vehicles as part of NCHRP Project 25-11, resulting in the development of a Comprehensive Modal Emissions Model (CMEM). An essential part of any model development process is validating the model. Various validation techniques have been applied to CMEM. This paper describes some of the latest validation work carried out in comparing CMEM results to independent emission testing results (independent in both vehicles and driving cycles). Further, CMEM has been compared with the latest versions of EMFAC and MOBILE. In general, compared with the independent emission measurements, CMEM predicts well. It has been found that CMEM is consistent with MOBILE and EMFAC at low to medium speeds. Greater deviations were found at very low speeds and very high speeds. At high speeds, CMEM tends to predict higher hydrocarbon (HC) emissions and lower oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) emissions. At the very low speeds, CMEM tends to predict lower than EMFAC and MOBILE for all emissions. These comparisons are part of an ongoing validation process for development of CMEM.