Assessment of Available Tools and Methodologies to Quantify Regional and Project Level Air Quality Effects for Freight Railroads
| Project Period: | 07/01/2009 - 08/31/2009 |
| Total Budget: | $25,000 |
| Sub-Contractors: | ENVIRON
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In Texas, each nonattainment area maintains an air quality model that includes emission inventories for on-road motor vehicles and off-road equipment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides emission rate models for vehicles and off-road equipment, but EPA does not provide models for locomotive emissions. Current practice is to model freight rail as a separate source category using special studies to estimate emissions from this category usually at a regional or nonattainment area scale.
Improvements to rail operations may not be fully reflected in such regional modeling. These improvements are usually specific projects proposed, so the project level analysis needs to be consistent with the regional emissions analysis. At a project level, the emission effects of a proposed action need to account for all incurred changes due to the action. The impact of an individual project may be small, but the collective impact of all projects in a region may be significant.
The purpose of this research project was to determine what tools, models, and/or methodologies are being used to calculate freight baseline and forecasted emissions inventories and the air quality benefits associated with improvements to freight rail infrastructure and operations, on both the regional and project levels, and identify areas of improvement to model inputs and modeling itself. The tasks include the following:
- Review of federal air quality regulations/requirements regarding freight railroads.
- Review of the current air quality modeling of freight railroads for conformity and State Implementation Plans in Texas and other states.
- Document existing locomotion emission models/methodologies and how freight railroads currently quantify emissions. Currently railroad companies use different emissions calculations.
- Assess the state of the practice as to how other agencies and/or nonattainment areas in Texas and the US are analyzing air quality for railroad infrastructure and operational improvements.
- Document and evaluate existing computer models and methodologies for assessing air quality for freight railroad improvements. Include data needs, data fields, level of effort, and confidence level of the analysis. Define the pros and cons of each.
- Recommend model and input enhancements for both project and regional level analyses and cost analysis.
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