Traffic Management and Control Strategies for Reducing Air and Noise Pollution in Private Road Transport

Nowadays, the environmental sustainability of human activities is a widely debated topic in the context of social and economic development. Especially in the transport sector, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and noise pollution, several efforts have been adopted aimed at addressing these environmental challenges, such as new technological solutions in the automotive sector, the implementation of the EURO standards and improvements in road surfaces and pavements. This study provides a contribution to the enhancement of air quality in the areas close to the road infrastructures, with the aim of reducing both air and noise pollution due to private road transport, by managing and controlling traffic flow through different actions and specific policies. These strategies are designed to influence users towards adopting more sustainable driving behaviours. In this paper, several traffic management solutions will be analyzed, combining different policies that act on traffic dynamics, involving the project’s variables in different ways. These policies will include progressive reduction of speed limits, lane openings and closures based on vehicle classes, and changes in the composition and volume of vehicle fleets. Results obtained from an extensive laboratory test campaign conducted on a real network will be discussed to identify the effects of actions and policies on air pollution, noise, and travel time. Finally, the study will propose a procedure to optimize the environmental performance of the system. This optimization will consider not only the environmental aspects but also the overall performance and level of service of the infrastructure.