Impact of Vehicle Aging and Mileage on Air Pollution Emissions

Abstract

The research described in this paper aimed to verify the impact of road vehicle aging on air pollutant emissions. The problem of vehicle aging and the resulting changing air pollutant emissions was identified with the operational mileage of passenger cars. The validity of such an approach to research on air pollutant emissions changing over time was confirmed by a preliminary review of publications in scientific databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. The research problem presented in this paper was to assess the impact of vehicle aging on essential air pollutant emissions (CO, CO2, NOX). The research method included measuring the actual RDE air pollutant emissions using research equipment, i.e., the SEMTECH DS gaseous exhaust gas component analyzer. This study was conducted on vehicles with diesel engines, different operating ages, different mileages, and engines with similar displacement, mostly 1.9–2.0 dm3, and equipped with manual transmissions. The tests were conducted in the Poznań agglomeration. The results of measured air pollutant emissions in the RDE mode allowed for mapping the changes in air pollutant emissions for diesel engine vehicles with similar displacement as a function of operating age (mileage) and also for collecting preliminary data for analyses in the field of modeling road air pollutant emissions within the vehicle aging phenomenon.

Keywords

• aging of vehicles
• emission of pollutants
• environmental impact