A Conceptual Examination of the Impact of Traffic Control Strategies on Vehicle Emission and Fuel Consumption

The federal government has charged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the responsibility of controlling and/or reducing the adverse levels of vehicle emissions, which result in unacceptable amounts of environmental pollution nationwide. In order to achieve this goal, the EPA, in turn, has mandated the installation of control technology in newer vehicles and more environmentally friendly new fuels. Theoretically, though, additional success could be achieved through the use of more emission sensitive traffic control strategies. The feasibility of this assumption can be tested by studying the real impacts of today’s advanced technology applications in transportation management on environmental factors. These impacts, in fact, are the basis for the design and implementation of a new generation of traffic management strategies.