Comprehensive air quality planning for the Barcelona Metropolitan Area through traffic management

This work analyses the projected improvements in urban air quality for 2015 in the coastal city of Barcelona (north–eastern Iberian Peninsula). To do so, the WRF–ARW/HERMES/CMAQ modelling system is applied at very high resolution (1 km x 1 km and 1 hour). The analysis is done by projecting the emissions of a base–case scenario defined for 2004 to three different future scenarios for 2015, each one representing a different set of traffic mobility management measures. Such measures integrate re–distribution of the current urban road network into “super– square blocks” as well as redirecting the traffic. The study is made more consistent by considering specific projections per sector of emission, mainly focusing on the vehicular fleet (introduction of technological improvements and the use of alternative fuels). The results of comparing the base–case versus the future scenarios indicate that the mobility management measures, technological improvements, use of alternative fuels and projection of emissions from different sectors will help to reduce the mean concentrations of atmospheric pollutants in downtown Barcelona, and also in the outskirts and in the metropolitan area.