Exploring the processes governing roadside pollutant concentrations in urban street canyon

This paper describes an in-depth analysis to investigate the huge variation in the measured roadside air-pollutant concentrations of carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide in terms of the traffic flow levels, the orientation of the street to the prevailing wind, the wind speed, temperature and barometric pressure. The work has attempted to develop generic parameters that can be applied to other urban areas. However, in the absence of a measure of congestion at the site in Palermo (Italy), the methodological approach proposed used the simultaneous noise measurements, in units of decibels (B), to help parameterise a generic congestion indicator in terms of the traffic flow. The potential transferability of the approach was demonstrated for a site in Marylebone Road, London (UK), given the similarity of the two study sites, canyon shape, traffic characteristics and road orientation. The results showed that, within the range of data available, noise levels could be used as a proxy for flow change on the shoulders of the peak hour and hence congestion and a generic relationship with factors statistically significant at 99% confidence allows roadside concentrations due to traffic to be estimated with a regression coefficient of R(2) = 0.73 (R = 0.85). The research demonstrates that whilst there are indeed underlying relationships that can explain the roadside concentrations based on traffic and meteorological conditions, evidence is presented that confirms the complexity of the physical and chemical processes that govern roadside concentrations.