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Assessment of Vehicle Emission Inventories at Urban Roads using

Principal Component Analysis
Subrata Roy1, Saurav Barua*2
1
Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Information Technology and Sciences (UITS), Dhaka,
Bangladesh
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Daffodil International University, Bangladesh

*Corresponding author: saurav.ce@diu.edu.bd

ABSTRACT cancer, and respiratory diseases in the long run.

The study endeavored to develop the vehicle
emission inventory by analyzing quantity,
quality and probable sources of pollutants in the
atmosphere of two different road segments of
Dhaka city. One road is a major arterial road
(R1), where traffic comprises with large portion
of motor cars and another road is a national
highway (R2), where traffic comprises with
heavy vehicles, such as, buses, trucks and freight
vehicle. Vehicle emission monitoring revealed
that CO2 shared more than 99% of total air
pollutants, which is a major greenhouse gas
resulting global warming. Two models were
proposed to estimate vehicle emission inventory
using Principal component analysis (PCA),
where PCA1 and PCA2 were developed for the
vehicle emission inventory of R1 and R2 road
respectively. Each of the model have two
components, where first component comprised
with particulate matter PM10, SO2, black and
organic carbon and second component
comprised with CO2 and CH4 gases. The PCA1
and PCA2 can explain 96.28% and 98.63%
variability of measured dataset respectively. The
proposed technique can help the concerned
authority to explore vehicle emission inventory
with better accuracy.
Keywords-- Vehicle emission inventory, principal
component analysis, traffic of Dhaka, air pollution,
greenhouse gas
INTRODUCTION
Vehicle emission produces greenhouse
gases (GHG)—Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane
(CH4) and air pollutants—particulate matter
(PM10), Sulfur dioxide (SO2), Black carbon (BC)
and Organic carbon (OC) which are serious threat
to public health in urban areas and most hyped
environmental concerns now-a-days. Noxious
chemicals emit through vehicle causing immediate
discomforts, such as, eye burning, breathing
problem, temporary vision problem, nasal itching
and severe diseases, such as, heart disease, lung
Like many other large densely populated cities
around the world, vehicle emission contributes
huge share of air pollution in Dhaka, Bangladesh;
resulting million dollar loss of productivity and
tolls thousands of deaths every year (Iqbal et al.,
2016). Hence, our study investigates the vehicle
emission in the roads of Dhaka city to better
understand current air pollution situation.
Vehicle emission inventory is the amount
of pollutants discharge into atmosphere over a
certain period of time. It accounts for the
involvement of various pollutants in the
atmosphere. Amount and quality of emission
depends on driving modes, vehicle types, sizes,
vehicle speed, engine types, fuel types, such as,
petrol, CNG, diesel and octane driven vehicle. The
inventory of vehicle emission is estimated by
emission factor which quantify the amount of
pollutant released in atmosphere associated with a
specific activity and it varies from country to
country. Most of the developing countries have
poor legislation on vehicular emission control.
They have large numbers of older vehicle with old
emission systems which emits huge particulate
matter and also use lower quality gasoline, rely on
diesel which produces high amount of sulfur. On
contrary, developed countries use high quality of
lead free gasoline, often blend fuel with ethanol,
which cause CO2 emission reduced. They also use
catalytic converter in exhaust to reduce toxic
oxides of nitrogen (NOx), Carbon monoxide (CO)
and hydrocarbons from fuel. Our study adopted
emission factor used by prior researches by
Reynolds and Kandlikar (2008); Wadud and Khan
(2011), which matches with the traffic of South
Asian region.
Principal component analysis (PCA) is a
dimension reduction technique, which is widely
applied in various fields of environmental studies
to model apportionment of pollutants in air, water,
sediment and soil. Pollutants produce from vehicle
emission mixed with atmosphere and causing
serious environmental hazards in Dhaka city. Our
study endeavored to model vehicle emission
inventories using PCA for some selected roads of
Dhaka. Hence, this study is unique and novel at
best our knowledge in this regard.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Air pollutants and greenhouse gases are
very harmful for human health and environment.
CO2 causes global warming and produced by the
combustion of fossil fuel. CH4 is a greenhouse gas,
high concentration may displace oxygen, causing
nausea, vomiting and rapid breathing problem.
PM10 are particulate matter whose aerodynamic
diameter are < 10μm. PM10 particles cause
coughing, bronchitis and adverse effect on
respiratory system. SO2 reacts with other
substances in the air to form acids, which
precipitate as rain, fog, snow and causes damage to
forests, crops and fishes. Black carbon (BC) relates
to respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer
and birth defect. Long term inhales of organic
carbon (OC) have adverse health effects, such as,
kidney or liver problems and affects nervous
systems. Urban pollution caused by automobile
emission is a long standing research topic across
the world. Wu et al. (2016) evaluated the vehicle
emission program of China based on the
observation of two decades. They mentioned that
rapid increase of motorization deteriorate air
quality in urban areas. Parrish (2006) assessed
vehicle emission inventories in the roads of USA.
He emphasized on understanding the vehicle
emission inventories on local, regional and global
scale. Wang et al. (2018) conducted long term
monitoring of vehicle emission at a tunnel in Hong
Kong. They added road dust, brake and tire wear
along with the vehicle emission which contributed
to air quality deterioration.
Very few researches have been conducted
on air pollution relating to vehicle emission in
(a)
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Volume-5, Issue-2 (May-August, 2020)
Bangladesh. Prior researches such as, Karim (1999)
studied traffic related pollution studies for Dhaka
city and found that concentration of black smoke,
lead, PM10 and oxides of nitrogen in the
atmosphere of Dhaka is hazardous for public
health. A study on fuel types of different vehicle in
Dhaka city (Wadud and Khan, 2011) showed that
motor cars comprised 96% CNG, 4% petrol; SUVs
comprised 81% CNG, 16% diesel and 3% petrol;
motorcycles were 100% petrol; trucks were 100%
diesel; buses and mini buses comprised with 61%
CNG, 39% diesel; Auto rickshaw comprised 97%
CNG and 3% petrol. Iqbal et al. (2014) assessed
distribution of vehicle emission inventory in
context of Dhaka. They suggested proper
management strategies to control traffic in order to
reduce vehicle emission related air pollution.
However, these researches endeavor on entire city
rather than area-wise investigation on vehicle
emission generated air pollution scenario.
METHODOLOGY
Study area and data collection
Traffic data were collected from
Kolabagan-Mirpur road (R1) and Khilkhet-Airport
road (R2) in Dhaka city. The R2 road is a national
highway and R1 road is a major arterial road. The
surveys were conducted on May, 2019. The
locations of the study area are shown in Figure 1.
The traffic surveys were recorded using video
camera and classified hourly vehicle counts were
calculated later. The video camera was set at
nearby foot over bridge to get unobstructed view of
traffic for each study area.
Journal of Recent Activities in Infrastructure e-ISSN: 2582-3124
Science Volume-5, Issue-2 (May-August, 2020)

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(b)

(c)

(d)
Figure 1: Study area (a) Location of data collection point at Kolabagan-Mirpur Road (R1), (b) Traffic at R1,
(c) Location of data collection point at Khikhet-Airport Road (R2) and (d) Traffic at R2.

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PCA method
Principal component analysis (PCA) can
simplify and transform complex high dimension
dataset while retaining data trends and patterns
(Jolliffe and Cadima, 2016). It is an unsupervised
learning method similar to clustering, where it
groups features into fewer dimensions and reduces
computational difficulties. PCA geometrically
projects data into lower dimension, which is called
principal components (PCs). The PCs are chosen in
such a way that they minimize the total distance
between the data and their corresponding projection
onto the PC. Thus, maximize the variance of
projected points are obtained. Each projection on
PC are uncorrelated to each other and the selection
of PCs in such a way to maximize correlation
between data and their projection (Lever et al.,
2017; Naik, 2017).
(a)
(b)
Figure 2: Vehicle composition (a) modal share of R1 and (b) modal share of R2.
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Vehicle composition
Average hourly vehicle obtained in R1
and R2 roads were 2794 vehicle/hr and 1288
vehicle/hr respectively. Traffic of R1 (R2) road
comprises with 46.89% (28.77%) motor car, 2.51%
(14.46%) bus, 15.18% (12.75%) motor cycle,
8.02% (17.26%) mini bus, 0.5% (1.4%) truck, 1.0%
(4.82%) mini truck and other vehicle. Since, R2 is
national highway where public transport and freight
vehicle comprised large share of traffic; percentage
of heavy vehicle, such as, bus, tuck and mini bus
were higher in R2 than those of R1. Similarly, R1
is arterial road where personal vehicle, such as,
motor car shared higher percentage compare to R2.
 Journal of Recent Activities in Infrastructure e-ISSN: 2582-3124
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Different types of vehicle have different
emission systems, fuel types and release various
composition and amount of pollutants and
greenhouse gases. Therefore, vehicle composition
on road influences the estimation of vehicle
emission inventory.
Qualitative Analysis
Vehicle emission in arterial R1 was found much
higher compare to highway R2 road segment
(Shown in Table 1). Volume of CO2 and CH4 were
very high and comprised 99% of total emission for
both study road segments. CO2, CH4 and OC
emission were 27.55% and 40.83%, 22.83% higher
respectively, conversely, PM10, SO2 and BC
emission were 2.44%, 20.32% and 13.90% lower
respectively in R1 road compare to those of R2
road.

Table 1: Total pollutant emission (gm/hr/km) in the study road segments.

Road/Emission CO2 PM10 SO2 CH4 BC OC
R1 709894 579 169 5974 263 167
R2 514341 593 203 3535 299 129

Correlation among pollutants showed that
CO2 emission was highly correlated with CH4
emission, i.e. 0.97 and 0.89 for R1 and R2
respectively. Similarly, PM10 emission have strong
correlation with SO2 and black carbon (BC), i.e.
0.93 (0.98) and 0.97 (0.99) for the R1 (R2) road
segment.
PCA models for the vehicle emission
Two separate PCA models are analyzed
by SPSS v. 24.0 for the traffic of R1 and R2. PCA
models for the vehicle emission of R1 road is
designated as PCA1 and PCA models for the
vehicle emission of R2 road is designated as PCA2.
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling
accuracy showed 0.63 and 0.74 for PCA1 and
PCA2 respectively. Both models have KMO>0.5
and statistically significance at α = 0.05 level.
PCA1 model have two components PC11
and PC12 which can explain 96.28% variability
and PCA2 model have two components PC21 and
PC22 which can explain 98.63% variability in the
dataset (Table 2). Components whose Eigen value
>1 are considered as significant for PCA model
(Jolliffe and Cadima, 2016).

Table 2(a): Variability of PCA1 model.

Total Variance Explained
Extraction Sums of Squared Rotation Sums of Squared
Initial Eigenvalues
Loadings Loadings
Component
% of Cumulative % of Cumulative % of Cumulative
Total Total Total
Variance % Variance % Variance %
1 3.513 58.551 58.551 3.513 58.551 58.551 3.332 55.539 55.539
2 2.264 37.731 96.282 2.264 37.731 96.282 2.445 40.743 96.282
3 .193 3.222 99.504
4 .017 .276 99.779
5 .010 .163 99.943
6 .003 .057 100.000
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Table 2(b): Variability of PCA2 model.

Total Variance Explained
Extraction Sums of Squared Rotation Sums of Squared
Initial Eigenvalues
Loadings Loadings
Component % of Cumulative % of Cumulative % of Cumulative
Total Total Total
Variance % Variance % Variance %
1 4.066 67.772 67.772 4.066 67.772 67.772 4.057 67.623 67.623
2 1.852 30.862 98.634 1.852 30.862 98.634 1.861 31.011 98.634
3 .062 1.032 99.666
4 .013 .218 99.884
5 .006 .092 99.976
6 .001 .024 100.000
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotated component matrix provides useful belonged to a specific principal component when
information regarding pollutants loading in each the loading of a pollutant > 0.4 or the difference in
principal component. A pollutant is assumed to be loading in two components of that particular

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 Journal of Recent Activities in Infrastructure e-ISSN: 2582-3124
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pollutant > 0.3 (Jolliffe and Cadima, 2016). Rotated with CO2 and CH4 in PCA1 model. Similarly,
components matrix in table 3 reveals that PC11 PC21 consisted with PM10, SO2, BC, OC and PC22
consists with PM10, SO2, BC and PC12 consists consisted with CO2 and CH4 in PCA2 model.

Table 3: Rotated Component Matrix.

Rotated Component Matrix
PCA1 model PCA2 model
Pollutants Component Component
PC11 PC12 PCA21 PCA22
CO2 0.059 0.98 0.287 0.952
PM10 0.977 0.196 0.996 0.068
SO2 0.977 -0.119 0.993 -0.03
CH4 -0.113 0.988 -0.225 0.97
BC 0.994 -0.019 0.998 -0.035
OC 0.648 0.674 0.975 0.084
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

PC11 and PC12 share 55.54% and 40.74% and PC22 share 67.62% and 31.01% variability
variability respectively in PCA1 model and PC21 respectively in PCA2 model.

(a)

(b)
Figure 3: Principal component analysis models (a) PCA1 with its components and (b) PCA2 with its
components.

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CONCLUSION
Air quality of Dhaka city is so much
degraded that it becomes serious problem to
surrounding environment. People living in the city
suffer various respiratory diseases, headache,
asthma, blood pressure, heart diseases and so on,
which caused by the toxic air inhalation over years.
Faculty vehicle emits black carbon particle;
emission of diesel run vehicle produce smoke, CO,
SO2, NOx; gasoline powered combustion engine
generates CO, NOx, SO2, unburned carbon particles
and dust from roads contributes to air pollution.
Concentration of suspended particulate matter PM10
and airborne lead particles in the atmosphere of the
city is very high and hazardous to public health.
Our study on the traffic of major arterial road
Kolabagan-Mirpur road (R1) characterized by high
numbers of motor cars and the vehicle emission
comprises with CO2 and CH4 gases. The other
study on the traffic of Khilkhet-Airport road (R2)
have larger percent share of heavy vehicle—bus,
truck, freight vehicle. They emit SO2, Organic
Carbon (OC) and PM10 pollutants along with
relatively low amount of CO2 and CH4 gases.
Majority portion of motor cars, auto rickshaw and
SUV have CNG fuel system, buses are CNG and
diesel powered, trucks are diesel powered and
motor cycle are petrol driven vehicle in Dhaka city.
These fuels burn into exhaust system of vehicle and
release toxic gases and pollutants in atmosphere.
More than 99% of total pollutants comprise with
CO2 gases, which is liable for global warming,
climate change and greenhouse effect. Modeling
vehicle emission of R1 and R2 roads show that, the
sources of these pollutants comprise with two
components. The first component consists with
SO2, PM10, BC or OC and the second component
consists with CO2 and CH4. Both of these
components can explain more than 95% variability
of vehicle emission inventory. The future study can
be extended for other roads of Dhaka city and
monitor probably sources of air pollutants
extensively. The outcomes of this study can be
conducive for the department of environment
(DoE) to develop sustainable policy and implement
feasible measures to control vehicle emission in the
city. Moreover, the analytic procedure of this study
can be adopted to develop the vehicle emission
inventory of other cities around the world. Strict
legislation and emission control are also required
along with the air quality monitoring policy making
side-by-side.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge
Department of Civil Engineering, University of
Information Technology and Sciences (UITS) for
providing technical support to conduct this
research.
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