Reducing pedestrians' inhalation of traffic-related air pollution through route choices: Case study in California suburb

Publication date: Available online 5 July 2018Source: Journal of Transport & HealthAuthor(s): Ji Luo, Kanok Boriboonsomsin, Matthew BarthAbstractPedestrians often face risks of inhaling a high amount of traffic-related air pollution due to their proximity to the emission sources and increased breathing rates during walking. This paper presents an innovative way for pedestrians to mitigate such risks. Specifically, a method for incorporating the estimated inhaled mass of fine particles (PM2.5) into walking route calculations was developed, and the calculated low air pollution inhalation route was compared against the traditional shortest duration route. For the case study of a suburban road network in Riverside, California, a low inhalation route could be found for 4% of the simulated walking trips in both morning and afternoon periods. In the morning period, the low inhalation routes would reduce a pedestrian's inhalation of traffic-related primary PM2.5 by 48% while increasing the walking duration by only 2% on average. Similarly, in the afternoon period, the low inhalation routes would reduce the inhalation by 44% while increasing the walking duration by merely 1% on average. These results indicate that if people who choose to walk can accommodate a slight increase in walking duration in some of their walking trips, they can substantially reduce the inhalation of traffic-related primary PM2.5 on those trips. The presented concept of low air pollution inhalation route can be...

Source: Journal of Transport and Health - July 5, 2018 Category: Occupational Health Source Type: research