The Texas A&M Transportation Institute's Urban Mobility Report (UMR) is acknowledged to be the most authoritative source of information about traffic congestion and its possible solutions. As policy makers from the local to national levels devise strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the level of interest in the environmental impact of urban congestion has increased. To this end, the researchers developed and applied a methodology to determine carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by congestion for inclusion in the UMR. The methodology also estimated fuel consumption on the basis of the CO2 emissions estimates. The researchers developed a five-step methodology with data from three primary data sources: (a) FHWA's Highway Performance Monitoring System, (b) INRIX traffic speed data, and (c) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator model. Results were intuitive and reasonable when emission rates (pounds of CO2 per mile) were compared with the emissions inventories in selected cities. The researchers incorporated the new methodology for all urban areas into the 2012 UMR and plan to include the same measures in future releases of the report. The researchers reported that, in 2011, 56 billion pounds of additional CO2 were produced in all 498 urban areas during congestion only; this amount equated to 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel. The amount of CO2 produced under free-flow conditions (i.e., absent congestion) was 1.8 trillion pounds in 2011 in all 498 urban areas.
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