Date of Award

5-2013

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

Kevin Heaslip

Committee

Kevin Heaslip

Committee

Anthony Chen

Committee

Randal Martin

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to investigate the possibility of a cordon area pricing scheme in an inversion prone area to reduce fine particulate matter (PM2.5) production and to give decision makers more options when it comes to reducing pollution. This project presents a case study in Cache County, Utah to determine the impact that a cordon area-pricing scheme would have in reducing the pollution. Cache Metropolitan Planning Organization (CMPO) provided a CUBE Voyager model of the county that was used and changed to measure vehicle miles travelled (VMT) from different scenarios for the years 2010, 2020, 2030, and 2035. A literature review was done on other cordon area pricing schemes from around the world to compare and use similar number in the modeling. Then the VMT was used to measure emissions using the emission rates from the CMPO’s MOBILE6.2 emissions model for all years. This project explains how the CUBE Voyager model of Cache County was developed and which parts were changed to model a cordon area-pricing scheme. The script file in the highway assignment section of the model was changed and only the external trips were reduced. The model has two different classifications of vehicles, long and short, that were changed differently for each scenario. There were four scenarios run in the model with two different types of data sets. Scenario 1 was a “do nothing” scenario that was run without any changes in the model and used as a base for comparison for the other scenarios. Scenario 2 was to reduce the external trips for both long and short vehicle trips by 20%. Scenario 3 was to reduce long vehicle external trips by 50% and short vehicle external trips by 20%. Scenario 4 was to reduce the long vehicle external trips by 100% and the short vehicle external trips by 20%. The two different types of data sets was one with the 2010 network used for all years denoted as a “No Build” network and the other used the data with each phase of highway capacity projects completed denoted as “With Phases.” The pollution reduction for all the scenarios was analyzed and recommendations were given.

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