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Heaven in Paris

Traffic management is a key environmental issue in Paris and the Ile-de-France region. The HEAVEN project will allow a significant step forward in the description and understanding of the links between traffic and environmental impacts.

Scope

The implementation of the HEAVEN project in Paris is focussed on the merging of real time traffic description with air quality modelling tools. The aim is to deliver high quality information for professional users and the public. This information will be updated several times a day and related to Paris and the whole Ile-de-France region (12000 km2 with 11.2 million inhabitants, see Figure 1). The system will also allow the environmental impact assessment of different transport management strategies (e.g. traffic restriction, speed limits reduction, improved vehicle fleet) through the Decision Support System (DSS).

For the whole Ile-de-France region, the final HEAVEN product is expected to deliver in near real time:

  • Traffic description on the main road network (34000 road axis and 21000 km length) coveringmore than 80% of the traffic volume,
  • Air pollutant emission maps highlighting traffic emissions,
  • Air pollutant concentration maps on both background locations at the regional scale and roadside locationsalong the main traffic network.

To reach these ambitious objectives both Airparif, the air quality monitoring network of the Ile-de-France region, and the local administrations from the transport sector (City of Paris and traffic control centre SIER/DRE) are strongly committed in HEAVEN.

Status of Work

Today, Paris and the Ile-de-France region already have an extended air quality monitoring network (50 monitoring stations and 150 automatic analysers, see Figure 1) that delivers a permanent description of the air pollution level at specific background and roadside locations. Additionally, Airparif uses regional and roadside modelling tools to enable an extensive description of the air quality patterns, especially after particular pollution episodes.

Figure 1:
Paris and Ile-de-France region

So far, the following results have been obtained within HEAVEN in Paris:

  • The regional air quality modelling tool "Pollux" has been implemented and validated through daily runs. The modelling domain of 180 km x 180 km with a 6 km x 6km grid size has been refined in the Paris area (i.e. 3 km x 3 km) (see Figure 2).

Figure 2:
Maximum NO2 Concentrations modelled on 12 August 2000
(a) Ile-de-France and (b) Paris

  • The data assimilation process of observed air quality has been developed within the regional modelling tool to obtain a more realistic description of background air pollution (see Figure 3).

Figure 3:
O3 Concentrations modelled on 23 August 2001 for the day before at 15h
(a) without and (b) with data assimilation process

  • The roadside air quality modelling tool "Street" for annual values and "static" traffic matrix has been implemented and validated.
  • Road typologies have been worked out, of which about 18 typologies describe 70% of the road network (see Figure 4).

Figure 4:
Description of the road typology
Example ofParis City Centre
Each colour is associated to a referenceroad typology (i.e. canyon street, large avenue)

  • The qualitative description of the vehicle fleet has been improved.
  • First tests of the Transport Demand Management Strategies (TDMS) have been carried out (see Figure 5, Figure 6 "In town without my car").
  • The non-traffic emission inventories have been improved.

Figure 5:
Impact on NOx emissions at 06h UT
(a) usual Wednesday and (b) "In town without my car" day:
Wednesday, 22 September 1999

Figure 6:
NOx Concentrations on "In town without my car" day,
22September 1999 at the morning peak hour

Outlook

Significant results have already been achieved and others will be accomplished in the month to come:

  • Real time acquisition of traffic data and trafficdescription.
  • Fast computation algorithms for traffic emissions.
  • Dynamic description of the hourly roadside air qualitythrough the roadside model.
  • Implementation of the DSS.

 

 

  

Heaven in Paris

Scope

Status of Work

Outlook