Vehicle Exhaust Remote Sensing Device Method to Screen Vehicles for Evaporative Running Loss Emissions.

Vehicle hydrocarbon (HC) emissions can be emitted from either tailpipe or nontailpipe locations, and understanding their fleet apportionment is important for a successful air pollution policy. Vehicles initially misidentified as having elevated tailpipe HC emissions first indicated that roadside exhaust sensors could detect the presence of evaporative HC emissions as increased noise in the HC/carbon dioxide (CO2) correlation measurement. The 90th percentile of the largest residual of the HC/CO2 correlation is defined as a running loss index (RLI) for each measurement. An RLI that is three standard deviations or greater above the instrument noise indicates possible evaporative running loss emissions with the probability increasing with larger RLI values. Two databases of vehicle emission measurements previously collected in West Los Angeles in 2013 and 2015 were screened using this method. The screening estimated that 0.09% (31/33,806) and 0.18% (49/27,413) of the attempted measurements indicated evaporative running loss emissions from a 9-year-old fleet. California LEV I certified vehicles (1994-2003 model years) accounted for the largest age group for both. The minimum detection limits for the instrument used were estimated at 2.8 and 1.6 g/mile on a propane basis for the 2013 and 2015 data, respectively, or 32-56 times the Federal Tier 2 and Tier 3 standards of 0.05 g/mile.

Evaluation of EDAR vehicle emissions remote sensing technology.

Despite much work in recent years, vehicle emissions remain a significant contributor in many areas where air quality standards are under threat. Policy-makers are actively exploring options for next generation vehicle emission control and local fleet management policies, and new monitoring technologies to aid these activities. Therefore, we report here on findings from two separate but complementary blind evaluation studies of one new-to-market real-world monitoring option, HEAT LLC's Emission Detection And Reporting system or EDAR, an above-road open path instrument that uses Differential Absorption LIDAR to provide a highly sensitive and selective measure of passing vehicle emissions. The first study, by Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Eastern Research Group, was a simulated exhaust gas test exercise used to investigate the instrumental accuracy of the EDAR. Here, CO, NO, CH4 and C3H8 measurements were found to exhibit high linearity, low bias, and low drift over a wide range of concentrations and vehicle speeds. Instrument accuracy was high (R2 0.996 for CO, 0.998 for NO; 0.983 for CH4; and 0.976 for C3H8) and detection limits were 50 to 100ppm for CO, 10 to 30ppm for NO, 15 to 35ppmC for CH4, and, depending on vehicle speed, 100 to 400ppmC3 for C3H8. The second study, by the Universities of Birmingham and Leeds and King's College London, used the comparison of EDAR, on-board Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) and car chaser (SNIFFER) system measurements collected under real-world conditions to investigate in situ EDAR performance. Given the analytical challenges associated with aligning these very different measurements, the observed agreements (e.g. EDAR versus PEMS R2 0.92 for CO/CO2; 0.97 for NO/CO2; ca. 0.82 for NO2/CO2; and, 0.94 for PM/CO2) were all highly encouraging and indicate that EDAR also provides a representative measure of vehicle emissions under real-world conditions.