EXPLORATION ON QUANTIFYING CARBON DIOXIDE (CO₂) EMISSION FROM ROAD TRAFFIC IN MEGACITY

Abstract. As the increasing concern for climate change, quantification on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in urban scale has been a key component for local climate actions. To explore an approach on estimating the GHG emissions closely to the real-world condition, in this paper, we make efforts on counting the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from road traffic in Tokyo. The road traffic emissions mapping is achieved by linking spatial road line data with detailed activity data (traffic census). Through the data processing by Geographic Information System technique, the emissions of each road segment are estimated basing on the daily average traffic amount and speed of vehicles on each road segment. As our estimation, the CO₂ emissions from road traffic of Tokyo in 2015 are about 16,323 Gg. The highlight points mainly refer to linking the traffic census information for the observed road segments on map and allocation efforts for unserved ones. As the limited amount of observation points in traffic census, accurate estimation for unobserved road segments is a challenge. Our approach overcomes it by assumption of a familiar traffic condition for all road segments in the same sub-city area. This approach could simulate the traffic patterns closely to the real traffic condition so that it will more effectively support the emission mitigation policies on road traffic for local climate.