Proactive vehicle emissions quantification from crash potential under stop-and-go traffic conditions

• A study aimed to investigate the connection between vehicle emissions and crash potential occurring in freeway traffic.
• Vehicle emission and crash potential indices were developed and those indices were related using correlation and regression.
• The developed methodology is helpful to evaluate traffic control strategies for transportation emissions reduction.

Driving behavior from vehicle interactions, such as acceleration, deceleration, and stop-and-go, is highly associated with traffic environment and safety conditions. This study is intended to investigate the connection between traffic environment and safety, more specifically, vehicle emissions and crash potential occurring in freeway traffic. Individual vehicle trajectory data collected from the US-101 freeway are used to investigate the relationship. Vehicle emission and crash potential indices are derived to characterize traffic environment and safety conditions, respectively, and relate those indices using correlation and regression. The resultant findings reveal that vehicle emissions are positively correlated with crash potentials in a statistically significant relationship. The methodological process for vehicle emissions and crash potential estimation developed in this study is expected to be used to monitor vehicle emissions from traffic conflict potential. Correspondingly, the methodological process is also to evaluate traffic control technology and policy implementation for improvement of transportation system efficiency with the goal of transportation emissions reduction.