Effect of traffic conditions on fuel consumption and emission from automobiles in Dhaka city

Abstract

Among other limitation/shortcomings, environmental problem in Dhaka city occur due to the lack of favorable facilities, such as, infrastructure of road network, insufficient traffic management, relaxation of traffic rules, coupled with the rapid risein transportation demand. Air quality monitoring data is very limited in Dhaka city. Bangladesh notified the first emission standard under the environment conservation rules in 1997, but the standards are incomplete, have some inherent limitations and more importantly it has lack of strategies for proper implementations. In Dhaka, there are no facilities for measurement of emissionsfrom in-service or onroad vehicles. In the present study, simulated on-board measurement has been carried out on six vehicles. The test was executed at the center of Dhaka city under various traffic conditions. All the vehicles comprising gasoline engine were measured for both fuel consumption and emission. The main emphasis was put on driving in the peak hours (morning and evening) and off-peak (noon) traffic conditions. Theprincipal aim isto obtain realistic fuel consumption and exhaust emission data for Dhaka city. Secondly, to establish the relationship between consumption and emissions under various traffic conditions. The collected data may be fed into a simulation model that would evaluate traffic management concepts to reducing fuel consumption and emissionlevels of cars.