Real-World Environmental Impacts from Modern Passenger Vehicles Operating in Urban Settings

Real-world testing of a set of modern vehicles show that most petrols meet their Euro standards fornitrous oxides (NOx), while most diesel vehicles exceed them. However, that some diesel vehicles met their Euro standards implies exceedances are not peculiar to the fuel. Likewise, the compliance of the tested petrol vehicles with the standard does not mean all petrol vehicles do. Engine maps were synthesized which reproduced trip level emissions to within 10% of that gathered under real-world driving conditions. Average velocity alone, such as what is used in COPERT, is a poor predictor of emissions. Stepwise linear models showed NOx emissions could be predicted accurately by incorporating other metrics, such as maximum deceleration and the variance of velocity over the driving cycle. The models were validated on three driving cycles where all vehicles met their Euro standards, save Euro 6 diesel vehicles on the US highway cycle. COPERT overestimated NOx from all vehicles. More work is required to combine driving cycle metrics with vehicle characteristics, such as mass and peak engine torque, to identify the conditions under which vehicles exceed their Euro limits.