Experimental investigation for the decisive role of vehicles in the air pollution of arak city in Iran and presenting the related solutions to reduce the air pollution

Abstract

In the World, in many of the large and industrial cities air quality is in a dire situation, and air pollution is considered a major problem. The first step in reducing the level of pollutants is to acquire enough detailed information about these pollutants, including the type, amount, and the rate of annual occurrence. In this study, the data obtained from the existing air quality measuring stations throughout the city of Arak in Iran have been used to conduct an accurate investigation and to perform hourly, daily, monthly, and annual analyses of various pollutants. The hourly analysis of the data collected from the Shariati square station at the downstream of the prevailing wind, which include the collective pollutions of the refinery, petrochemical plant, thermal power plant and the pollution generated by the vehicles in a high-traffic area, with regards to the annual calendar and the variation of pollutants during official holidays, indicates the determining share of vehicles in the air pollution of the city of Arak. Considering the effective role of vehicles in the extensive air pollution of this city, some policies have been suggested for reducing the level of air pollution. As a result of this study, using the stated transportation model the level of pollution in this city is considered to reduce, correcting the city streets and routes from engineering perspective. Also, results showed that the role of industry and vehicles on the air pollution and the pollution points in Arak city in ratio. The levels of all the pollutants like CO, NOx, PM2.5, O3 and SO2 measured by a station at the downstream and resulted about 3ppm, 20ppb, 10, 40ppb and 4 as a ratio respectively. Lastly, result of model was reported at the end of this paper in term of the optimization of the Arak city residential area.