Impacts of freeway accidents on CO2 emissions: A case study for Orange County, California, US

•Traffic congestion causes by traffic accidents contributes to CO2 emissions.•More efficient and prompt responses to accidents lead to reduced CO2 emissions.•Presentation of case study assessment of CO2 emissions illustrates linkages.

Traffic congestion caused by traffic accidents contributes to CO2 emissions. Generally, more efficient and prompt responses to accidents lead to reduced traffic congestion as well as CO2 emissions. Here we assess the CO2 emissions impacts of freeway accidents, applies an existing model to capture spatio-temporally congested regions caused by freeway accidents. A case study for the assessment of CO2 emissions impacts of based on the results from the model is presented.