California Air Resources Board

Principal Investigator/Authors: Sandeep Kishan

Contractor: Eastern Research Group

Sub-contractor: OPUS Inspection

Contract Number: 24RD004

Project Status: Active

Relevant CARB Programs: Community Air Protection Program, Community Air Projection Incentives, Mobile Source Emissions Inventory, Advanced Clean Cars Program, Zero-Emission Vehicle Program, Enhanced Fleet Modernization Program, Clean Vehicle Rebate Project

Topic Areas: Environmental Justice, Air Pollution Exposure, Light-Duty Vehicle Research, Heavy-Duty Vehicles, Heavy-Duty Vehicle Research, Advanced Technology & Low Carbon Transit, Zero-Emission Vehicles

Research Summary:

Under State legislative directions, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been developing and implementing comprehensive programs to reduce tailpipe emissions from light-duty vehicles (LDV) with internal combustion engine (ICE), to foster electric vehicle (EV) transition, and to address community-level air pollution disparities from environmental justice perspectives. To help verify the effectiveness of CARB programs as they progress and to inform areas for improvement, it is critically important to track the trends of fleet emission characteristics and community-level emission rate disparities using large emission measurement datasets of real-world vehicle operations.

Through research projects sponsored by CARB and partner organizations such as the Coordinating Research Council (CRC) and Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR), CARB has collected vehicle exhaust emission data measured with roadside-deployed remote sensing device (RSD) at a historical West Los Angeles location and at a number of other locations across the State. These measurements established longitudinal trends of LDV fleet emission characteristics and a snapshot assessment of statewide emission rate disparities between vehicles registered in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities (DAC) and non-DAC-registered vehicles. This project will extend the longitudinal fleet emission characteristics trends and the DAC/non-DAC vehicle emissions disparities.

This project will inform CARB mobile source emission programs and Community Air Protection Program; thereby reducing adverse health effects from vehicle exhaust emissions.

Keywords: communities, environmental justice, reducing disparities, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions, NOx reductions, criteria pollutants, priority communities, CalEnviroScreen (CES), clean technology, incentives, light-duty vehicle, heavy-duty vehicle, zero-emission vehicle (ZEV), advanced technology, air quality, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), disadvantaged communities