Research for the AASHTO Committee on Environment and Sustainability. Task 108. Creating Lookup Tables to Streamline the Determination of Emission Reductions for CMAQ Projects

Under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Program, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) distributes funds to states to assist in projects and programs that help reduce vehicle-related emissions in areas with nonattainment or maintenance status. Many types of projects can be considered for CMAQ funding including traffic signal synchronization, ride-sharing programs, and diesel retrofit projects. To obtain CMAQ funds, states must submit an analysis describing the air quality improvement benefits that the project or program will achieve. Analyses submitted in the past to justify a particular project or program have varied widely from a simple qualitative description of the estimated emission reduction benefit to more complex project-specific quantitative analyses. As the time and cost for conducting such analyses can be significant, state DOTs and other project sponsors can benefit from simplified procedures, including the use of lookup tables for typical project types that would significantly reduce the time and cost for analyses by state DOTs while also serving to improve the consistency and accuracy of the estimated emission reductions for FHWA. This research developed a spreadsheet-based Simplified Toolkit that can be used to calculate emissions reductions for 16 project types, based on minimized and simplified inputs. The NCHRP 25-25 Task 108 Simplified Toolkit is independent of the FHWA CMAQ Emissions Calculator Toolkit (available HERE), but is designed to build upon that resource by providing state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and other project sponsors with additional tools to efficiently calculate emissions reductions in accordance with federal requirements.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4104

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $125000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 25-25, Task 108

• Sponsor Organizations:

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Hartell, Ann

• Performing Organizations:

  Louis Berger Group

  30A Vreeland Road
  Florham Park, NJ  United States  07932
• Principal Investigators:

  Tidd, Leo

• Start Date: 20180301
• Expected Completion Date: 20190628
• Actual Completion Date: 20190628

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air quality; Environmental impacts; Improvements; Pollutants; Project management; State departments of transportation; Sustainable development
• Identifier Terms: Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program; National Environmental Policy Act
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Environment; Highways; Policy;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01651595
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 25-25, Task 108
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 27 2017 7:59PM