Study of road dust re-suspension and vehicular emissions on a transport corridor
Student name: Ms Manali Dutta
Guide: Dr Suresh Jain
Year of completion: 2017
Host Organisation: CSIR- National Environmental Engineering Research Institute- Delhi Zonal Centre
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr S.K. Goyal and Dr Sunil Gulia
Abstract: In a mega-city like Delhi, vehicular pollution including re-suspension of road dust plays an important
role for urban air quality management. The management of vehicles related pollution becomes more
complex due to mixed road types, mixed fuels, mixed engine sizes, mixed technologies, and mixed usage
patterns which is one of the major challenges for policy makers. This study is an attempt to understand
and assess the particulate matter (PM) mass concentrations (PM 10 , PM 2.5 and PM 1 ) emitted from
heterogeneous traffic moving along the selected road corridor (~1 km length) of Girdhari Lal Goswami
Marg in Delhi city. The heterogeneous traffic characteristics of the road indicated dominance of 4-
wheelers (41%) followed by the 2-wheelers (40%), 3-wheelers (11%), light commercial vehicles (5%),
buses (2%) and trucks (1%). The hourly traffic volume during the day is found in the range of 3861-
4938 numbers per hour.
PM concentration was measured using GRIMM portable aerosol spectrometer. At study region, the
PM 2.5 comprised approx. 30% of PM 10 . Further, it was found that the PM 10 and PM 2.5 concentrations
at the study site followed similar trend of total traffic. The analysis of 4-hr average PM 10 and PM 2.5
concentrations are found in the range of 225-675 µg/m
3
and 67-190 µg/m
3
respectively indicating
significant contribution from the vehicular emissions. The study focuses on the performance evaluation
of CALINE-4 model for predicting particulate matter (PM) concentrations along the selected road
corridor. The modelling results indicate that the dispersion of PM along the road corridor was limited
to a distance from the edge of the road. The predicted contribution of road dust is found to be
49% and 45% for PM 10 and PM 2.5 respectively, therefore a large fraction of the PM pollutant
is contributed from road dust.
Keywords: Urban Air Pollution, Vehicular Pollution, Road Dust Emissions, Caline-4
