Assessment of Negatives Road Traffic Externalities: Air and Noise Pollution Cases

In the environmental studies, air and noise pollution monitoring is essential for risk assessment, identification of sources, simulation of mitigation measures, evaluation of the exposed population and urban planning. Related to this subject, current study presents a numerical analysis of air pollutant dispersion and noise propagation along a road axis. Traffic modeling is done by using a macroscopic approach based on the first-order traffic model. This model is coupled with two other models: The first is a Gaussian plume model for pollutant dispersion modeling, and the second is a statistical traffic noise model for traffic noise propagation modeling. Coupling between these three models allowed to predicting the pollutant concentration field and equivalent noise level. Obtained results indicate that pollutant dispersion and traffic noise propagation are strongly related to road traffic state and climatic parameters. Indeed, the monoxide carbon (CO) concentration and equivalent noise level increase with increasing the road congested cells number. Moreover, CO concentration increases when increasing the wind angle, and it is found to be decreased for high atmospheric instability.