Utah Wintertime Measurements of Heavy-Duty Vehicle Nitrogen Oxide Emission Factors

There have only been a few wintertime studies of heavy-duty vehicle (HDV) NO emissions in the United States, and while they have observed increased emissions, fleet characterization to identify the cause has been lacking. We have collected wintertime measurements of NO emission factors from 1591 HDVs at a Utah Port of Entry in December 2020 that includes individual vehicle identification. In general, NO emission factors for 2011 and newer chassis model year HDV are significantly higher than those for 2017 spring measurements from California. The newest chassis model year HDV (2017-2021) NO emission factors are similar, indicating no significant emission deterioration over the 5 year period, though they are still approximately a factor of 3 higher than the portable emission measurement on-road enforcement standard. We estimate that ambient temperature increases NO emissions no more than 25% in the newer HDV, likely through reductions in catalyst efficiencies. NO emissions increase to a significantly higher level for the 2011-2013 chassis model year vehicles, where within the uncertainties, they have emissions similar to older precontrol vehicles, indicating that they have lost their NO control capabilities within 8 years. MOVES3 modeling of the Utah fleet underpredicted mean NO emissions by a factor of 1.8 but the MOVES3 estimate is helped by including a larger fraction of high-emitting glider kit trucks (new chassis with pre-emission control engines) than found in the observations.