Traffic operating characteristics and its impacts on air pollution in an urban area - A case study of Chennai, India

The traffic is growing at rapid rate in urban areas of India and the management of traffic operations on the limited road network of the cities has become a gigantic task to the concerned authorities. Despite the concerted efforts of concerned authorities aimed at augmenting road infrastructure, traffic congestion is continuing to increase leading to environmental degradation. Eventually, a major study was commissioned by the Government of India to quantify urban travel by road and associated air pollutants coming from automobile exhausts in eight cities namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kanpur and Agra. The main objective was to make an accurate assessment of total number of vehicles and develop database and techniques to estimate road traffic and pollution loads in each city. This paper describes operating characteristics of traffic and quantification of traffic and air pollution loads (base and horizon year) on major road network of Chennai city.